🚀 go-pugleaf

tvz@zandtwerk.Princeton.EDU () writes:
>Suppose that I want to put a star shape down at 100 or 200 points
>on a page. Which is better, to define a procedure that draws the
>star shape or to define a temporary font with the star shape?
>How much is the difference in terms of performance (memory/speed)?

With these parameters (and assuming that the star is not huge--i.e., that
it's small enough to fit in the font cache) you are much better off using a
font.

The procedure gets executed--all the rendering and rasterization--every
time.  The only thing you really save is in using "bind" to save some
operator lookups, and that's inconsequential compared to the character
rendering time.

With a font, the star character gets converted to a bitmap only once.
That's most of the work.  Then, each time you show the character, the bits
just get blopped into the page bitmap.
-- 
Dick Dunn    rcd@raven.eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd    Boulder, Colorado
				Cats!