Re: [css-text-4] text-wrap:balance take 2

On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 12:04 AM, Florian Rivoal <florian@rivoal.net> wrote:
>> On 26 Jan 2015, at 23:55, Alan Stearns <stearns@adobe.com> wrote:
>> [...]
>> the deviation from the average
>> [...]
>
> Is this intentionally left vague, opening differences in terms of quality of implementation?

That's not vague.  Deviation is a numerical value that you can compare
across lines.  It's just linear difference.

> I would clarify 'deviation' into 'standard deviation'. Compared to the mean absolute deviation, the std dev is preferable, as it punishes extreme values more. For example, on a four line block, if you have between each line being 1 character off the average, or 2 lines being exactly at the average and 2 lines being off by 2 characters, the standard deviation would prefer the first situation, while the mean absolute deviation would be indifferent.

I agree that minimizing the squared deviation is better.  It's almost
always better for these kinds of "get close to the average" things.

~TJ