Re: SOFT HYPHEN

From: John Cowan (jcowan@reutershealth.com)
Date: Tue Nov 16 1999 - 10:37:38 EST


Markus Kuhn wrote:

> I wasn't familiar with it, but a quick look at it tells me that I wish I
> had written it myself. I like it very much and fully agree with Jukka
> Korpela's advice and conclusion.

What 8859-1 says is irrelevant, because it is not the document character
set of HTML 4.0. The HTML 4.0 and Unicode definitions align and should
be accepted. SHY is a hyphenation hint that may be rendered as a hyphen
or otherwise.

> - Inserting hyphenation points directly into a document in the
> running text is usually a very bad idea, because it does not aid in
> allowing to reformat the text later, it leads to inconsistent hyphenation
> across a document, and it complicates search/replace algorithms.

I agree with this point: using SHY is probably a kludge, like XML
processing instructions. However, sometimes even kludges have their places.

-- 

John Cowan http://www.reutershealth.com jcowan@reutershealth.com Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis vom dies! / Schliess eurer Aug vor heiliger Schau Den er genoss vom Honig-Tau / Und trank die Milch vom Paradies. -- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)



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