[XeTeX] \font syntax

[Roland Kuhn]

Hi Jonathan!

On 31 Jul 2007, at 13:27, Jonathan Kew wrote:

>> but why not use the 'tfm search' as a fallback then? if a "name"
>> cannot
>> be resolved, search for a tfm one instead
>
> As I mentioned, XeTeX used to do this, but I'm not entirely convinced
> it's a good idea. E.g., error messages may be less confusing if it's
> clear which kind of font (or search) is being requested. But I'm
> interested to hear what people think.... anyone else with opinions on
> this?
>
I'm sure my vote does not carry as much weight as that of someone who  
actually contributed code/etc., but I find your reasoning consistent  
and matching my own expectations. Trying hard to guess what a user  
might have wanted usually fails catastrophically. The only case known  
to me which is at least debatable is Perl ;-) I think it is better to  
give a clear error message than to magically "fix" user errors. The  
argument of a robust interface is flawed exactly because TFM and OTF  
have different behaviour per se.

Ciao,
                     Roland

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