I&#x27;ve always admired METAFONT (and I&#x27;ve got my first Knuth cheque for a mistake in the METAFONTbook).<p>And even though font designers moved closer to programming (writing Python plugins for FontLab etc.) they never really explored this avenue (except for the short multi-master episode).<p>Sure, METAFONT itself is archaic, spitting out only bitmap fonts. But the general workflow, the programming, the elegant and intuitive way to specify curves (Beziér curves are simply unfriendly), and the concept of pens made it not only state of those days&#x27; art.<p>I&#x27;d argue it is still very much ahead of everything else, except for all practical purposes. A bit like Haskell maybe. ;-)