Hands, Face, Space

hands-face-space.ipynb

If I understand that correctly, it should be called "Hands, Face, Kern!", shouldn't it?

It actually determines the spacing values for a pair, then computes kerns from that. The name refers to the UK’s COVID-19 public messaging.

I didn't know about the reference.

But it is not producing or outputting the spacing, or is it?

It is. See "Predicted spacing : 98".

With spacing I meant sidebearing values for individual glyphs.

Ah. No, it's not intended for use as an autospacer, but assuming you have already got the sidebearings, it uses the pair spacing prediction to create the kern value. The idea is that you give it a few examples of correctly kerned pairs, and it will use that information to generate more kern pairs and tell you the level of confidence for the generated kern pair; provide more examples and it will give you more confident output.

Sort of like... other software you might have seen.

Then I did understand it correctly. So "Kern" would be a better fit. It still would be a reference to the Boris (that most people in the world will not understand).

And why can’t it produce spacing. Just "kern" it to a bar and instead of outputting kerning, adjust the side-bearings.

I gotta be honest, IMO "Hands Face Kern" would be a way more interesting name; plus, any people who would get the reference to the original would also get the reference to the latter ... with the added bonus of it being a second-order play on the terminology....

Comedy is tough engineering, at times, that's for sure.