Re: font proposal bogosities

On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 2:40 PM, Thomas Lord<lord@emf.net> wrote:
> Two general sets of ideas seem to show up in the
> font discussion that I think can be persuasively
> argued against as general categories.
>
> These ideas are:
>
> 1. Requirements that browsers sometimes
>   refuse to render with a font that is
>   at hand to the browser.
>
> 2. New formats whose rationale is to be
>   different from existing font formats.
>
>
> Refutations:
>
> 1. A requirement that a browser simply
>   decide to not render with a given font
>   has the fatal flaw that it contributes
>   nothing at all to interoperability.

Actually, it contributes to interoperability with the font itself,
which is a piece of software. The font is expected to behave in
certain ways (even if that means NOT rendering), and the browser is
making that happen.

>   And that bug is a bad bug: it can present a
>   threat to life and limb when a life critical
>   resource goes un-rendered in a time of desparate
>   need.

The user would get fallback to some other font. The results would be
no worse than they are today.

Making the results consistent across browsers would help make them
predictable as well. If a given web site with an improperly handled
font link doesn't render on any browser, nobody would expect
otherwise.

Giving more freedom to browsers to behave differently from each other
in this regard would be the increased risk in terms of getting
expected results.

Cheers,

T

Received on Friday, 26 June 2009 20:19:27 UTC