> From: Edward Cherlin [mailto:edward.cherlin.sy.67@aya.yale.edu]
> At 2:04 PM -0500 4/17/01, Ayers, Mike wrote:
> > > From: Edward Cherlin [mailto:edward.cherlin.sy.67@aya.yale.edu]
> > >
> > > One of the strongest benefits of Unicode is that it supports adequate
> >> *monolingual* computing for the first time in any language.
> >
> > Horsepuckey!
>
> Gesundheit.
>
> > The concept that "publication- and calligraphic-quality
> documents"
> >are the standard for "adequate" computing in English is absurd.
>
> You talk like a heads-down programming geek. Are you?
No. Neither am I "brainwashed". I will thank you to cease using
such inflammatory terms.
> As I said, the brainwashing over the last century has been intense.
> "Adequate" in any form of computing does not mean "What the devotees
> are willing to put up with, because there is nothing half so much
> worth doing as simply messing around with computers." Nor does it
> mean, "the small part of what we want to do that computers can do."
> It means "up to the user's task". The task in English includes full
> support of publication, which cannot be done in an 8-bit character
> set.
WHOAH! Huge leap there. Who defined *that* task? I thought we
were discussing "adequate" here. In my book, adequate computing in a
language means that the message gets across without causing pain to the
reader. Most readers of English , I am willing to posit, are not
aesthetically sensitive enough to be pained by poor typography, nor, I
suspect, have they ever been.
> Ken Lunde gets mad at me because I encourage people to create less
> than publication-quality fonts for non-publication purposes. Ask him
> about "adequacy", and you'll get a real earful.
Which, with all due respect, I'd ignore. This is "pearls before
swine" to me.
Before I get completely misunderstood here, let me clarify my
position. Typography is an art, not a necessity. The message carried by
the most beautifully typeset works of the English language can be
communicated effectively in ASCII - no dingbats, "copyright" spelled out,
etc., etc. Pictures, of course, are not part of the discussion. It is true
that the extra symbols can make the read a little easier, but they are not
considered[1] necessary. We were discussing adequcy, not excellence, and to
me the two are quite distinct.
/|/|ike
[1] I judge consideration here by external parties. For instance, many
symbols, such as copyright, trademark, section, etc. are not used in
environments where they are available. This would imply that these symbols
are not considered necessary by at least some of the folks who have access
to them.
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