4 ms·

Metafont produces bitmap fonts, but the description is in vectors. You have to remember that generating bitmaps from outlines takes a decent amount of computin

by dubya 10y ago

Metafont produces bitmap fonts, but the description is in vectors. You have to remember that generating bitmaps from outlines takes a decent amount of computing power, especially pre-1990, and caching the bitmaps is a reasonable default.

jandrese 10y ago
It was a reasonable default. These days it's far more suspect. TeX in general has the feel of an application that's been stuck in the 80s for a long long time.
- acqq 10y ago
  The "core" of TeX (actually the only thing that should be called "TeX", the part that Knuth developed and maintains) is so by design decision (his initial decision, that I quoted). What's today used by the other as "TeX" is actually some independently maintained collection around of that core (a "distribution" like TeX Live or MikTeX) and it can and is intentionally "adapted" to the more modern times by its maintainers. http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/167470/how-to-follow-the-knuth-license http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/167470/how-to-follow-... Knuth's paraphrased license: "it can be used freely, modified to suit one's needs, but -- if changed -- given a new name." ... "the reason for the name change request/requirement is practical -- to avoid the confusion" Then, once Knuth decided his TeX is stable enough, he even introduced the version numbering system that would make quite obvious his decision that the changes should happen almost never (the version number length increases with every change, making it always harder for everybody to refer to the newer version if it happens): "Since version 3 (released 1989) TeX has used an idiosyncratic version numbering system, where updates have been indicated by adding an extra digit at the end of the decimal, so that the version number asymptotically approaches π. This is a reflection of the fact that TeX is now very stable, and only minor updates are anticipated. The current version of TeX is 3.14159265; it was last updated 2014-01-12." An answer on the StackOverflow discussing the possibility of TeX successor, from 2008: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/303877/is-a-successor-for-tex-latex-in-sight http://stackoverflow.com/questions/303877/is-a-successor-for...
- dubya 10y ago
  The default now is that no one uses Metafont, so it doesn't really matter what it outputs. AFAIK, (almost) no one outputs dvi files, or uses whatever the old font choosing mechanism was, either. The Computer Modern fonts are still pretty commonly used, and probably look somewhat dated, but it's not that difficult to use other fonts, especially if you choose a TeX variant like XeTeX. I think Metafont tried to address a lot of things that were really only interesting to type designers, who turn out to be largely allergic to designing fonts in a text editor. Some of the ideas were revisited in the Adobe Multiple Master fonts, now extinct, and I believe there's a new version of (fonts with axes in addition to size).

by dubya 10y ago

jandrese 10y ago

It was a reasonable default. These days it's far more suspect. TeX in general has the feel of an application that's been stuck in the 80s for a long long time.

acqq 10y ago
The "core" of TeX (actually the only thing that should be called "TeX", the part that Knuth developed and maintains) is so by design decision (his initial decision, that I quoted). What's today used by the other as "TeX" is actually some independently maintained collection around of that core (a "distribution" like TeX Live or MikTeX) and it can and is intentionally "adapted" to the more modern times by its maintainers. http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/167470/how-to-follow-the-knuth-license http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/167470/how-to-follow-... Knuth's paraphrased license: "it can be used freely, modified to suit one's needs, but -- if changed -- given a new name." ... "the reason for the name change request/requirement is practical -- to avoid the confusion" Then, once Knuth decided his TeX is stable enough, he even introduced the version numbering system that would make quite obvious his decision that the changes should happen almost never (the version number length increases with every change, making it always harder for everybody to refer to the newer version if it happens): "Since version 3 (released 1989) TeX has used an idiosyncratic version numbering system, where updates have been indicated by adding an extra digit at the end of the decimal, so that the version number asymptotically approaches π. This is a reflection of the fact that TeX is now very stable, and only minor updates are anticipated. The current version of TeX is 3.14159265; it was last updated 2014-01-12." An answer on the StackOverflow discussing the possibility of TeX successor, from 2008: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/303877/is-a-successor-for-tex-latex-in-sight http://stackoverflow.com/questions/303877/is-a-successor-for...
dubya 10y ago
The default now is that no one uses Metafont, so it doesn't really matter what it outputs. AFAIK, (almost) no one outputs dvi files, or uses whatever the old font choosing mechanism was, either. The Computer Modern fonts are still pretty commonly used, and probably look somewhat dated, but it's not that difficult to use other fonts, especially if you choose a TeX variant like XeTeX. I think Metafont tried to address a lot of things that were really only interesting to type designers, who turn out to be largely allergic to designing fonts in a text editor. Some of the ideas were revisited in the Adobe Multiple Master fonts, now extinct, and I believe there's a new version of (fonts with axes in addition to size).