Message-Id: <9311151612.AA29711@sc.ZIB-Berlin.DE>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de>
Date:         Mon, 15 Nov 93 11:05:10 -0500
From: H Sami Sozuer <sozueh@RPI.EDU>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de>
To: Multiple Recipients of <LATEX-L@vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de>
Subject:      Re: psfonts.dtx
Status: R


Joachim Scroeder writes:
> Why are you concerned about the amount of font information looked at?
>     It just concerns the number of TFM files loaded; and that's
>     surely neglectable.

Well, that's like saying what do you care how big a program is.
For starters, there are only 255 TFM files that any document van load,
and for anybody who knows how to count, the number that NFSS actually
uses comes dangerously close to the limit. In fact, with the
"small" implementations of TeX, that test document cannot be
processed, because the limit is 128. I'd say that's a problem
but our friend Joachim doesn't think so.

> > Why is it that NFSS assigns so many when nobody asked it to?
>
> Because it's implemented in this way. So what?

That's the point Joachim. You got it.

> As far as I have read the documentation to NFSS and followed the
> discussion on NFSS, it was created to have a logical interface to
> font handling. From the user viewpoint, that's all. He has an
> interface description, and he _must not_ care about the
> implementation (as long as it works...)

You got it, again. It _don't_ always work.

>     The implementation decides which fonts are loaded on demand,
> that's simply not the business of the user.

Not if I have to pay an extra thirty bucks for the "NFSS manual"
only to get the message

Font xxx not loadable. Not enough room left.

Cheer up, and look at all this as a wake-up call.
Which is what it is.

Sami Sozuer