X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1531" "Mon" "20" "May" "1996" "09:40:42" "+1000" "Ken Smith" "kgs@MATHS.UQ.OZ.AU" nil "33" "Re: More on fontdimensions" "^Date:" nil nil "5" nil "More on fontdimensions" nil nil] nil) Received: from MZDMZA.ZDV.UNI-MAINZ.DE (dzdmzb.zdv.Uni-Mainz.DE [134.93.8.33]) by trudi.zdv.Uni-Mainz.DE (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id SAA09216; Mon, 20 May 1996 18:34:32 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from DIRECTORY-DAEMON by MZDMZA.ZDV.UNI-MAINZ.DE (PMDF V5.0-4 #10401) id <01I4XBY2C1K0A3DRNZ@MZDMZA.ZDV.UNI-MAINZ.DE>; Mon, 20 May 1996 10:30:56 +0100 Received: from listserv.gmd.de (listserv.gmd.de) by MZDMZA.ZDV.UNI-MAINZ.DE (PMDF V5.0-4 #10401) id <01I4XBS0SSJKA3DSH3@MZDMZA.ZDV.UNI-MAINZ.DE>; Mon, 20 May 1996 10:26:04 +0100 Received: from listserv.gmd.de by listserv.gmd.de (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <7.AD25C3D7@listserv.gmd.de>; Mon, 20 May 1996 10:22:13 +0200 Received: from URZINFO.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE by URZINFO.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8b) with spool id 94434 for LATEX-L@URZINFO.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE; Mon, 20 May 1996 10:20:50 +0200 Received: from axiom.maths.uq.oz.au (root@axiom.maths.uq.oz.au [130.102.160.1]) by relay.urz.uni-heidelberg.de (8.7.5/8.7.4) with SMTP id KAA28479 for ; Mon, 20 May 1996 10:20:40 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (from kgs@localhost) by axiom.maths.uq.oz.au (8.6.11/8.6.12) id JAA09537 for LATEX-L@relay.urz.uni-heidelberg.de; Mon, 20 May 1996 09:40:42 +1000 Reply-to: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project Message-id: <199605192340.JAA09537@axiom.maths.uq.oz.au> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Date: Mon, 20 May 1996 09:40:42 +1000 From: Ken Smith Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L Subject: Re: More on fontdimensions Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 1743 J"org Knappen writes: > I have now a test implementation with the additional fontdimensions above > Nr. 22. Unfortunately, this causes the tfm files and the space needed in > the font memory to grow more then necessary, because all empty > fontdimensions are automatically set to zeroes. > > Therefore I'd like to ask, if this waste of space is tolerable, or whether ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > the additional font dimensions should low numbers again. Since there are > less than 13 (or even 22) additional dimensions, the dc fonts can't be > mistaken for math italic or math extension fonts by TeX. > > What do you think? I am reminded of a passage in _TeX, the program_ where Knuth wrote that he adopted a particular procedure because it saved 2 bytes of memory, at the cost of extra processing time. Surely today we don't need to worry about wasted space on hard disks, and the speed of modern machines is such that scanning a tfm file for the relevant dimension(s) adds a negligible amount of time in processing. I recently installed emTeX on a Pentium for students in this Department. The machine has a 1.2 Gb disk, and each of the tfm files took up 32 kb since DOS doesn't allow more than $2^{16}$ files in any partition, and the disk was configured as a single partition. With files taking up this much space I don't think you need worry about some extra dimensions in some fonts "wasting" space. > --J"org Knappen. Ken Smith kgs@maths.uq.oz.au