Mostly font editors use Bézier curves with four control points, so the effect of moving an off-curve point is limited to that portion of the curve from the associated on-curve node up towards the opposing on-curve node as affected by the other on-curve node.
It is my understanding that only a couple of very expensive font editors use B-splines where there are three control points which ripple as I noted, however it seems that FontForge supports order2 (quadratic, TrueType) or order3 (cubic, PostScript).
It is my understanding that only a couple of very expensive font editors use B-splines where there are three control points which ripple as I noted, however it seems that FontForge supports order2 (quadratic, TrueType) or order3 (cubic, PostScript).