I think that your analogy is slightly off, though true enough. I'd say that writing a low level library is more akin to actually drawing a typeface than it is t

I think that your analogy is slightly off, though true enough. I'd say that writing a low level library is more akin to actually drawing a typeface than it is to mucking with the spacing of an existing one. You won't learn a lot about what goes into properly spacing a typeface just through kerning, as you would by examining a lower level protocol and writing an implementation.