3 ms·

I upvoted this comment, but sadly I wouldn't call METAFONT a “popular” system. The number of people who have successfully created “true” meta-fonts as Knuth int

by svat 7y ago

I upvoted this comment, but sadly I wouldn't call METAFONT a “popular” system. The number of people who have successfully created “true” meta-fonts as Knuth intended is tiny. Nevertheless, when used with skill it can be very satisfying, as in Knuth's paper that I can only describe as a performance (The Concept of a Meta-Font, https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/visiblelanguage/pdf/16.1/the-concept-of-a-meta-font.pdf https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/visiblelanguage/pdf/16.1/... ) See also A Punk Meta-Font (https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb09-2/tb21knut.pdf https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb09-2/tb21knut.pdf) where he describes waking up one morning with an idea to create a certain kind of font, going to the computer at 1pm, and basically being done by 4pm. It is interesting to see the ideas from METAFONT basically ignored and misinterpreted by most of the mainstream of type designers (despite people like Zapf, Bigelow, Holmes, Carter and Southall being involved with the Stanford typography project and helping Knuth refine Computer Modern), only to be slowly reintroduced decades later in new forms (variable fonts etc).

svat 7y ago
Forgot to mention: this site https://www.metaflop.com/modulator https://www.metaflop.com/modulator ought to be better known, and I ought to remember to mention it every time I mention METAFONT. One great drawback of METAFONT, which held back (still does, but used to too) its adoption in the decades when we could have wonderful things built on it, is the lack of quick visual feedback. (The bigger one of course, is that most font designers don't want to describe their shapes with equations: they think in curves, not about curves.) As I understand it, the site is developed by a couple of enthusiasts and goes a long way to address that problem. At https://www.metaflop.com/modulator https://www.metaflop.com/modulator just adjust sliders to create a unique font (or get something random by clicking "flop it!", and then tweak it). You can even download the resulting font if you like it.
fho 7y ago
> a performance Yes it was ... bravo! (No really that was a fantastic read)

by svat 7y ago

svat 7y ago

Forgot to mention: this site https://www.metaflop.com/modulator https://www.metaflop.com/modulator ought to be better known, and I ought to remember to mention it every time I mention METAFONT. One great drawback of METAFONT, which held back (still does, but used to too) its adoption in the decades when we could have wonderful things built on it, is the lack of quick visual feedback. (The bigger one of course, is that most font designers don't want to describe their shapes with equations: they think in curves, not about curves.) As I understand it, the site is developed by a couple of enthusiasts and goes a long way to address that problem. At https://www.metaflop.com/modulator https://www.metaflop.com/modulator just adjust sliders to create a unique font (or get something random by clicking "flop it!", and then tweak it). You can even download the resulting font if you like it.

fho 7y ago

> a performance Yes it was ... bravo! (No really that was a fantastic read)