Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!yale!husc6!umb!candy
From: candy@umb.umb.edu (declarer/Karl B./dummy)
Newsgroups: comp.fonts
Subject: Metafont -> PostScript
Message-ID: <646@umb.umb.edu>
Date: 15 Jun 88 22:56:16 GMT
Organization: UMASS-Boston, Boston, MA
Lines: 39


Leslie Carr's article was interesting, and messing
around with the transcript file is certainly the only way to
go , but
(a) Metafont pens are not converted into outlines (i.e., splines),
hence MF programs that use pens (like Computer Modern) won't
be readily translatable, and
(b) His results are interesting from a computer scientist's
point of view, but from a type designer's point of view
they are, sad to say, not worth too much. His resulting type
doesn't look anything like Computer Modern; it's sort of
a bastardization of a modern type and an oldstyle type.
The transitional serifs (with a curve, instead of meeting
at right angles), are especially jarring.

This is an example of a general problem in computer science.
(It seems to me.) Computer people know a lot about computers;
but computers can simulate almost (perhaps in a few decades we'll
be able to strike the ``almost'') anything, but only if
the person doing the simulating knows as much as an expert
in that field. (In this case, type design.) This is not
a common combination. (In the Metafontbook, Don Knuth
says he hopes the best designs will result from collaborations
between designers who aren't experts in Metafont (i.e., computers),
and programmers who aren't experts in type design.) In other
fields, such as art (the Science news article a while back
about computer-generated ``Mondrians'', while good enough
to fool me, didn't even cause my friend with an art background
to blink an eyelash -- out of the four there, she pointed to
the genuine Mondrian without hesitation), music, and on and on.
As programmers get better at programming, they want to do more
challenging things, which unfortunately often leads to not-so-wonderful
results in terms of the field they're trying to write programs for.

Until universities or businesses start funding ``computer science
and X'' programs, I think the results will fall short.

Karl.      karl@umb.edu
Kathy.     letters@umb.edu