Re: [Groff] Formatting algorithm

[Ulrich Lauther]

On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 07:44:07PM -0400, Peter Schaffter wrote:
> Here's the bare bones version of the algorithm I was thinking of
> when I proposed improving line formatting by getting groff to
> shoulder the burden for some of the work we do manually.  It's
> written out in brute-force pseudo-code; should be pretty clear.
> 
> The aim is not to find optimal breaks in Knuthian fashion, but to
> improve the uniformity of grey from line to line using a greedy
> algorithm.  Key features are that letterspacing and wordspacing are
> orthogonal, and that NextWord can be read during optimization.
> 
Even if a greedy algorithm will be implemented, it should have
the whole paragraph available as input.
That way, one could easily switch over to a KP-implementation and
compare the two appraoches in terms of quality, running time, and
code complexity.
Provided a clean interface and input/output specifications are available
I would volunteer to implement the dynamic programming (KP) variant.

Kind regards,

     ulrich lauther