🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <26760@life.ai.mit.edu> bkph@wheat-chex.ai.mit.edu (Berthold K.P. Horn) writes:
>
>THE FONT ENCODING MESS:
>=======================

Agree with most of the things said, but ...

>Finally:  Let's hope that UNICODE with its 16-bit characters will help
>resolve some of these problems.  Although, UNICODE is dead in the
>water if it does not provide access to ligatures.  For there can be
>no fine typesetting without ligatures.
>
>FLAME OFF

... I don't know about this. It seems ironical, but perhaps not.
Should there be a :-) attached? or is it just rabid flaming?

As far as I understand, Unicode and other character codes are intended
for information interchange, not for driving typesetting equipment.

Any typographical adjustments necessary for 'fine typesetting' must
surely be done on a different level than Unicode is intended for.
Ligatures are, I think, closer to typefaces, and only rarely carrying
vital information. Those ligatures that *are* indispensable are in
Unicode as far as I can see.

Fine typesetting requires very good control of spacing - particularly
spacing of capitals. Unicode doesn't provide that either.  Should it?
I doubt it.

Very fine Arabic typesetting has its own set of problems, none of
which is addressed by Unicode. If we want to provide fine typesetting
in Unicode, we must do it for all languages supported, mustn't we?

It seems its just the font encoding problem over again, but on a
different level.  So perhaps it was irony after all.

-- 
Anders Thulin       ath@linkoping.trab.se 
Telia Research AB, Teknikringen 2B, S-583 30 Linkoping, Sweden