[tex-k] Suggestion about exercise 17.20 in TeXbook

[Igor Liferenko]

Hi all,

There is a very obscure sentence on p.156 of TeXbook:

    (Such fonts aren’t available in stripped down versions of TeX, but
let’s assume that they exist.)

I doubt that this sentence is of any value to the reader. It only
raises questions.

One of them is: what is "version of TeX"? Is it "implementation of
TeX" or "distribution of TeX"?

Obviously, it cannot be "implementation of TeX", because a font is not
part of an implementation - it is a separate entity!

So, it means "distribution of TeX". But whatever distribution one is
using, it is hardly a problem to get cmmib10 font.

So, I don't see the point of this remark.

Wouldn't it be more informative just to say something like "(An
example of such font is cmmib10.)"?

Regards,
Igor