🚀 go-pugleaf

amanda@mermaid.intercon.com (Amanda Walker) writes:

>[Talking about Don Lancaster's PostScript stuff]
>What's the big secret?  [...]  

>However, when he starts talking about PostScript itself, he seems to go
>off into left field [...]

(My biggest bitch is that he publishes his PostScript source in "crunched"
mode without any comments or indentation.  Argh.)

>Maybe I just don't have enough sense of the mysteriousness of PostScript,
>but all of the things that Don takes so much glee in "revealing" seem
>quite straightforward to me, such as:

> - Deglitching Bezier contours in device space (FlxProc)
> - Rounding overall font parameters in device space (BlueValues et al.)
> - Compensating for characteristics of the marking engine (Erosion functions
>	and parameters)
> - Factoring out common features such as serifs, bows, and so on (Subrs)
> - Encoding glyph contours and composite characters in as compact a format as
>   possible (Subrs and CharStrings)
> - Fulfilling license agreements with typeface manufacturers to prevent
>   people from easily obtaining outline representations of characters
>   (encrypted fonts and the infamous charpath "lockout" on pathforall).

>These aren't evil, secret things, folks...  These are things that *should*
>be in an sophisticated page imaging system.

Agreed.  Then again, they should not only be in the imaging system, but
they *should* be documented, too.  I think that's the point Don (and
many others) are trying to make.

The red, blue, and (to a degree) green books don't really tell you what
it's like to write PostScript "in the real world." "Real World
Postscript" edited by Stephen Roth is the only book I've found so far
that gives any real inside peeks into "real life."

Then again, I'm just a novice PostScript hacker, so you wizards can
feel free to tromp on this posting... 8-)

/\  Dave Shaver  -=*=-  CS Systems Support Group, Iowa State University
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