From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Stefan Monnier Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: GSoC project "Hyphenation"? Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:40:45 -0400 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1332873667 25370 80.91.229.3 (27 Mar 2012 18:41:07 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2012 18:41:07 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Mar 27 20:41:02 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1SCbKD-0007vL-9g for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 27 Mar 2012 20:40:57 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:57682 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SCbKC-0005a5-MH for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:40:56 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:41194) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SCbK6-0005ZL-RE for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:40:55 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SCbK5-0002mJ-1Q for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:40:50 -0400 Original-Received: from pruche.dit.umontreal.ca ([132.204.246.22]:40576) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SCbK4-0002m3-S2 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:40:48 -0400 Original-Received: from faina.iro.umontreal.ca (lechon.iro.umontreal.ca [132.204.27.242]) by pruche.dit.umontreal.ca (8.14.1/8.14.1) with ESMTP id q2RIej5i004539; Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:40:45 -0400 Original-Received: by faina.iro.umontreal.ca (Postfix, from userid 20848) id AD400B4046; Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:40:45 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: (Tim Landscheidt's message of "Tue, 27 Mar 2012 16:01:30 +0000") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.0.94 (gnu/linux) X-NAI-Spam-Flag: NO X-NAI-Spam-Threshold: 5 X-NAI-Spam-Score: 0 X-NAI-Spam-Rules: 1 Rules triggered RV4174=0 X-NAI-Spam-Version: 2.2.0.9309 : core <4174> : streams <741651> : uri <1090997> X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 132.204.246.22 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:149232 Archived-At: > time and time again I have searched for "Emacs" and "hyphen- > ation", and so little results came up that I looked up "hy- > phenation" again to make sure that I hadn't misspelled it. I guess there's a combination of reasons for that: - Emacs doesn't support proportional fonts very well. - monospaced justified text is rarely used. - => justified text is rarely used in Emacs. - hyphenation is rarely needed for non-justified text. E.g. without hyphenation, your email would not have been much less pleasantly balanced. There are only 3 paragraphs where your hyphenation lets Emacs's filling algorithm give noticeably better results, but by tweaking down the fill-column on a case-by-case basis (from 60 to 57, for example), you can easily get back something reasonably close (aesthetically) to the hyphenated version. Of course, a refined filling code could get even better result when combined with hyphenation, but my point is simply that I'm not sure the extra work needed for hyphenation is worth the trouble at this point. Especially since "naive" hyphenation like you've done in your email is not great either: a typographer would scream at some of your paragraphs where all lines are hyphenated (already, hyphenating two successive lines is generally considered bad style). > Comments or sentiments? It's the first time I hear not just a request but even any mention of the concept of hyphenation support for Emacs, so I indeed wouldn't consider it high-priority. But by all means, do scratch that itch, Stefan