[XeTeX] Loading fonts from a common server or http URL

[mskala at ansuz.sooke.bc.ca]

On Wed, 22 Jun 2011, Keith J. Schultz wrote:
> 	2) A program can open any/retrieve any file on a server
> 	     using http. all it needs to do is speak http!

While we're at it, let's add a spelling checker, SQL database backend, and
multilingual thesaurus to TeX.  Also a Space Invaders mini-game that you
can play while you wait for your document to compile.  And let's make all
these things work identically on all platforms, of course.

I don't think that network communication is reasonably part of what TeX is
for, and although I recognize that some current extended-TeX projects
already include it because it was part of languages or libraries they
imported, and there may be some EXTREMELY UNUSUAL situations (such as
compiling documents locally on a small tablet) where remote file loading
is useful, I hope there isn't a large effort made to add this as a basic
widely-used feature.  I already have enough trouble when people send me
documents with files missing, without also adding in the compatibility and
security nightmares of "Oh, my document won't compile, or won't compile
the same way today as yesterday, because of issues on a remote server I
don't control."  Remember that repeatability is a basic part of the
mission of TeX, and repeatability simply no longer exists as soon as your
document depends on remote files.

The existing \write18 feature allows documents to execute arbitrary
programs, and there's free software available for all currently popular
operating systems to automatically download files as needed.  (e.g.
HTTP-client filesystems for FUSE, under Linux and Mac OS.)  So people who
do need to make their documents access the network during compilation,
already can.  I don't think it should be encouraged, though, nor that TeX
should have an entire HTTP client built into it (which is NOT a trivial
project if you want it to be cross-platform and actually work) just to
make it easier for users to destroy the repeatability of TeX compilation.
-- 
Matthew Skala
mskala at ansuz.sooke.bc.ca                 People before principles.
http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/