Re: user-defined characters, translation maps, and environment binding (was: Proposed: stop subjecting right-hand sides of `char` family requests)

[Dave Kemper]

On 4/24/23, G. Branden Robinson <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote:
> Applying `tr` only to the current environment would accommodate the
> local use case better at the admitted expense of the global one.

That there are two use cases with differing needs suggests that
perhaps there should be two different .tr-like requests, one that
affects the current environment and one that acts globally.

> To tie this back to `tr` and why these are related discussions, I
> presently understand character definitions to be global--
> supra-environmental.  I aim to sharpen the distinction between
> translations and character definitions by retaining character
> definitions' global application while subordinating translation maps to
> the environment.

This relates the two proposals in a mental-model sense, but I'm still
not clear on how making the .tr request local to the environment
(http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?62691) is technically related to making
it affect the RHS of a .char definition
(http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?55155), the latter of which was the
original subject of this thread.

Unless I'm missing something, either change could be made or not made
regardless of what is chosen for the other; that is, neither one
should be a prerequisite of, or blocker for, the other.