Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 13:14:29 -0700 (PDT) From: Jamie Bowden <ragnar@sysabend.org> To: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> Cc: James Howard <howardjp@well.com>, Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>, Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in>, Joseph Mallett <jmallett@newgold.net>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: banner(6) Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.10.10104191301090.83352-100000@moo.sysabend.org> In-Reply-To: <15070.37699.876831.515060@guru.mired.org>
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On Thu, 19 Apr 2001, Mike Meyer wrote: :Jamie Bowden <ragnar@sysabend.org> types: :> On Wed, 18 Apr 2001, James Howard wrote: :> :On Wed, 18 Apr 2001, Brett Glass wrote: :> :> That's because Adobe misuses the term. I come from a family which :> :> includes several generations of typesetters and type designers. :> :> The correct meaning of the word "font" has existed for hundreds :> :> of years, and abuse by one company can't change it. :> :Everything Brett has said so far is confirmed by The Chicago Manual of :> :Style. Just a note. :> My grandfather is a printer. Has a Heidelberg in his garage. I don't :> need to steenkin' Chicago Manual of Style to confirm what Brett's saying. :> When he talks about a font, he's talking about something specific like :> Helvetica 12pt. medium. : :So what did he call a collection of programs that are used to render a :typeface? *That's* the question at hand. Usually crap, as most suck. It's amazing just how bad computers are at displaying fonts properly. He uses some program to layout offset jobs, but for real precision small scale stuff, the movable type that changed the world is far superior. :Quoting the comp.fonts faq (my references are in storage), question :1.12: : : A typeface is a set of lettters, numbers, and other symbolic : characters that are related by repeating design elements [...]. : : A font is a computer file or program used to represent or : create the typeface. :That's fairly close to how Brett defined fonts (a definition I agree :with): a font is a rendering of a typeface. The FAQ is specific to :fonts on the computer, and basically defines a font as a rendering of :a typeface as a computer file or program. I wasn't disagreeing with Brett. Reread my post, I was confirming that a font was indeed a specific size and wieght of a typeface. I have always thought the way computer companies use the word font was incredibly stupid. :Classicaly, when you bought a font you got a rendering of a typeface :at a specific size and weight from a specific foundry designed to be :set on a specific kind of machine. When you buy a non-scalable :computer font, that's exactly what you get, except the machine they :are set on is now software. Scalable computer fonts are the same, :except they are no longer tied to a specific size. They still come in :a specific weight (ok, I'm ignoring multiple master fonts) from a :specific foundry designed to be set with a specific kind of :program. Adobe Garamond rendered in PostScript is clearly the same :typeface as Adobe Garamond rendered in TrueType - and equally clearly :the two are *not* the same thing. As such, "scalable font" is a :perfectly reasonable name for the things. I don't give a shit how many FAQ's have been written, a couple hundred years of continuous use into and including current time far outweighs one industry's stupidity on the matter. Typefaces are weighted and sized to create fonts. Period. :With all deference due to the old practitioners of the field, I think :the font foundry that created the name "scalable fonts" chose the :write noun to provide with a new adjective. I'd say they chose the 'right' one, if didn't think the way the terms are used in the computer industry is totally stupid. It's a typeface. You can scale it up or down, and change the weight on the fly to create a font that meets your current need. There is no need to redefine terms because some pointy haired moron can't read and comprehend a dictionary. Jamie Bowden -- "It was half way to Rivendell when the drugs began to take hold" Hunter S Tolkien "Fear and Loathing in Barad Dur" Iain Bowen <alaric@alaric.org.uk> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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