Re: What's the relationship between vfs and tfms?

[Rebecca and Rowland <rebecca@astrid.u-net.com>]

[snip]

>Well, as you know, you *don't* need any of that for simple use of text fonts.

Doesn't that depend on how you define `simple'?

>And I know that *you* specifically do complex things that cannot be handled
>without VF or the FMP.

What's FMP?

[snip]

>   of some T1  charachter  missing in the `standard glyph set' like
>   Abreve in Palatino-Roman. And imagine you're talking a language that
>   requires that one.
>
>Precisely, for *your* complex requirements you must have either VF
>or the FMP.

While it might seem complex to someone like me who only ever writes in
(semi) English, it's hardly complex to people who use a language that
includes use of Abreve.

[snip]

>I was not taking about something so complex.  I acknowledged that for
>complex work VF has power that you can use.  My point is that it is a
>mistake to force use of this complex and unneccessary machinery
>on a simple problem.  Since you have to reencode the font in any
>case in the DVI processor, you can determine its layout fully.
>Why add another layer of rearranging of the character layout?

Partly because from the point of view of the *end user*, it's not complex
at all.  After all, once upon a time, one could produce fine typesetting
without using something in excess of 30 million electronic components (in
my case).  Isn't that terribly complicated, using all that complicated
circuitry?  Running a terribly complicated application program that took
tens of thousands of man-hours to develop?  Which in turn needs an even
more complicated OS?  etc?  Once upon a time, everything was terribly
simple - you just stacked up little lumps of typemetal in your composing
stick and shoved the lines in the frame.  I've done it, and I'm very glad
I've got OzTeX instead.

>Why kill a flea with a steam-press :-)?

Because you can?

>Regards, Berthold.
>
>P.S. I am sorry this has taken us so far away from the documentation
>for fontinst, but maybe it will clarify some font related issues
>as a side effect.

Oh, this is very much related to fontinst documentation.  After all, the
bloke writing the stuff had damned well better understand what's going on,
and right now, he doesn't (and I should know).  All this discussion is
*very* interesting and illuminating.

Rowland.