State of Text Rendering 2024

State of Text Rendering 2024
behdad.org

PS: That is in Firefox. In Chrome it uses what appears to be a bitmap font, which is much worse.

> Finally, I proposed that the future of font shaping and drawing/ painting will involve a fully-programmable paradigm.

> Two tongue-in-cheek mis-uses of the HarfBuzz Wasm shaper appeared recently: the Bad Apple font, and llama.ttf. Check them out!

See... the thing about solving problems is that, eventually you realize that any kind of problem can be solved by simply making a platform that can execute arbitrary code.

...and you see it again and again.

Declarative compile definition in make? Why not just make it code and use cmake?

Declarative infra in terraform? Why not just make it code and use pulumi?

Declarative ui? Why not just make it code and use javascript?

Database that holds data? Why not just use stored procedures and do it in code?

The list just goes on and on, and every time you have to roll back to a few important questions:

- Is the domain so complicated you really need arbitrary code execution?

- Are you inventing a new programming language for it?

- How will people program and test for the target?

- How will you manage the security sandbox around it?

It's just such a persuasive idea; can't figure out how to deal with the complexity in configuration? Make it code and push the problem to the user instead!

Sometimes it makes sense. Sometimes it works out.

To be fair, I get it, yes, font layouts are harder than they look, and yes, using WASM as a target solves some of those issues, but I look at llama.ttf and I really have to pause and go...

...really? Does my font need to be able to implement a LLM?

I don't really think it does.

...and even if the problem is really so complex that rendering glyphs requires arbitrary code (I'm not convinced, but I can see the argument), I think you should be doing this in shaders, which already exist, already have a security sandbox and already have an ecosystem of tooling around it.

I think inventing a new programmable font thing is basically inventing a new less functional form of shaders, and it's a decision that everyone involved will come to regret...