Re: GNU troff's fundamental character type (was: neatroff for Russian)

[Dave Kemper]

On 5/6/23, G. Branden Robinson <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote:
> I disagree with this too.  Part of the value of encapsulation of the
> fundamental character type inside a formatter-specific type is that we
> can change our minds _again_ if circumstances warrant.

Good point, and that moots all my points in this email.  Nonetheless,
I'll clarify one of them:

> At 2023-04-29T22:33:52-0500, Dave Kemper wrote:
>> and a theoretical future chapter-at-once algorithm (to, for example,
>> optimize page layouts to eliminate widows)
>
> Well, if you format each paragraph in a diversion, you don't need to
> expand the formatter's view of the present as much.

I was thinking of (but didn't say out loud) an algorithm, as far as I
know nonexistent at present, that would prevent widows while keeping
the bottom margin on every page the same.  In practice, this can
entail tweaking a paragraph on page 4 to prevent a widow on page 6.
An algorithm that can't see past a single paragraph cannot accomplish
this.  Possibly no algorithm can accomplish this; it's a much harder
problem than the one Knuth-Plass tackles, and might be getting into AI
territory, which will automatically incur Doug's wrath.