Implement Rust-based UFO reader/writer

[knutnergaard]

I'm dealing with a lot of large fonts, which makes working with a relatively slow Python-based UFO backend slightly annoying. Any reason why defcon hasn't adopted this or something similar, just for the sake of speed?

Is there any demand for or interest in adopting a Rust-based UFO reader/writer?

[knutnergaard]

For anyone interested (which, judging from the response to this issue, seems not be many) I've written a super fast glif parser in Rust, available here: https://github.com/knutnergaard/ufo-gleaner

Although initially done mostly as a learning exercise, I will continue to maintain and develop it if the demand is there.

[benkiel]

Defcon is built for building applications on top of it, so it does a lot of checking. If you are looking for just fast reading, without checking, have you looked at: https://github.com/fonttools/ufoLib2 ?

[benkiel]

(apologies for the slow reply, summer!)

[knutnergaard]

Thanks! My question was defcon-specific exactly for the reason you point out. With the many checks defcon needs to perform, I would think it be a good idea to optimize performance as much as possible, even if it means going beyond Python for certain fundamentals.