Re: [9fans] [RFC] fonts and unicode/utf [TeX]

[Michael Kerpan <mjkerpan@kerpan.com>]

On Sun, Jun 26, 2011 at 3:57 AM,  <tlaronde@polynum.com> wrote:

> I don't know what "automagic" ligatures are; but ligatures are here in
> the kerTeX fonts, user having nothing special to do to have them. Small
> caps are here. Using the system fonts is here too, at least for T1
> fonts: afm2tfm(1) makes them available. For other fonts format,
> writing a whatever2tfm(1) will do the job.

In general using a simple Type 1 font isn't going to get you things
like true small caps, ligatures (beyond maybe the basic "fi" and "fl")
or the ability to choose between old-style and lining figures. The 256
glyph limit means that you had to split things up into multiple fonts,
This works well enough for simply creating a PostScript file that will
be fed straight to a laser printer, but for creating searchable PDF
files, it's far from ideal. In TeX, it also require a lot of manual
work above and beyond what would be needed to get those features using
Computer Modern. With OpenType support (and using OpenType fonts, of
course), typographic features become as easy to use with third-party
fonts as they are with Computer Modern.

> And "archaic" is definitively a marketing sentence, not a scientific
> judgement: "Euclid? Well... it was perhaps good for the epoch..."

True enough. it's more my opinion than anything else. Still, it must
be an opinion shared by someone else, given the widespread use of
"fontspec" wherever available compared to the older methods.

>> The problem is that these modern implementations are HUGE. On the
>> average Linux system, TeX, LaTeX and other paraphernalia seem to take
>> up well over 1 GB these days. I've given up on TeX because it's just
>> so darn big.
>
> So have I.

> kerTeX is 1/100th of the current TeX distributions and is C89, that is
> the most portable. It lacks some Heirloom troff features, but it is for
> text and mathematics, includes a font designer: METAFONT, a figure
> designer: MetaPost and a bunch of debugging utilities, coding utilities
> (WEB), fonts and a state of the art documentation.

I'm not disparaging your work. In fact I think its pretty good. I was
mainly trying to point out the problems that have arisen in some
"modern" TeX distros in the past.

> So I stick to kerTeX. And I have recorded what _you_ propose to do ;)
> Since you seem to claim that the way _you are engaged in_ is easier than
> the road I have taken, you should have finished before I have finished
> kerTeX, rendering it /* sigh */ obsolete...

I doubt that, as tounge-in-cheek suggestions seldom seem to turn into
working ideas (at least when they come from me)