Text shaping is hard? How about a browser? If these guys think they've got something innovative, more power to them. We got this comment a lot back when we started Chrome, but fortunately we didn't let it stop us :-)
Yes, browsers are hard!* That was sort of the point: If you're trying to crack a problem like that, you might not want to also try to solve text shaping on the side, because you may not have the time to do it properly. There's a lot more out there than English, and OpenType can do quite a lot.
* = I hail from KDE, and am good friends with some of the people who originally made the browser engine you're using today in Chrome :).
Like I said, the success of the project doesn't depend on the feasibility of rewriting HarfBuzz. We're quite pragmatic about using external libraries; in fact, Rust's FFI is the best FFI I've ever used in any non-C/C++ language. Robert's point is simply that the end result will be better if we can make a memory-safe, parallel HarfBuzz along the way, written in a language that improves programmer productivity.
