> When I tried implementing my own in something like Inkscape, it always uses floats for coordinates, no matter how hard I tried to coax it into a fixed grid or

> When I tried implementing my own in something like Inkscape, it always uses floats for coordinates, no matter how hard I tried to coax it into a fixed grid or using integer values. With that problem alone, you will never be able to get a compact path. It's not obvious, but for that you have to save as-> Optimized SVG instead of saving as regular SVG.