alt Hacker NewsAre fonts really programs? Is a digital image file also a program?
A font file is more like a config that’s used by your OS to render something, there’s no real interactivity in fonts (except some ligatures but those are just static tables, right?).
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alpaca128 • 04/24/2025
Fonts aren't just programs, they can contain and run an entire AI model to give you access to an LLM in any program running Harfbuzz: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40766791
I would say that counts as interactivity.
djfivyvusn • 04/24/2025
Yes. And they're also copyrightable.
That's why this shit is so stupid.
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TrueType, which has been around since the 80s, includes a full Turing-complete instruction set for hinting: https://developer.apple.com/fonts/TrueType-Reference-Manual/...