Re: too small inter-word spacing

[Jeff Kingston]

> Yes, I have a similar impression: Spacing for English is ok, but
> for German (also known for its long words) it is often too tight.

I think this mail of Michael's puts us over a threshold where it
would seem to be worthwhile to offer users some means of
controlling the tightness of paragraph layout.  The next
question is, what?  The optimum paragraph breaker utilizes
a number of obscure constants.  I would very much prefer to
boil these down into just one number that the user can set;
but on the other hand, I can see at least two dimensions:
pure tightness/looseness, and tendency to hyphenate or not.

I can't see myself doing anything for the impending release,
but I would welcome comments and suggestions.  Does anyone
know of any other typesetting system with such a feature?

Jeff