Re: The benefit of a symbol for 2 pi

From: Philipp Reichmuth (uzsv2k@uni-bonn.de)
Date: Fri Jan 18 2002 - 13:57:07 EST


Hello Robert and others,

>> I think the Unicode Consortium and WG2 do understand this, and that is why
>> they are so reluctant to encode symbols that do not have established usage,
>> as in the case of 2 pi, or seek to make a social or political statement that
>> the Consortium and WG2 do not intend, as in the case of copyleft.

RP> Which seems to make Unicode a defender of the status quo.

I don't see how that is a bad thing in this case. Setting a standard
for encoding characters is mainly about encoding those characters that
are used widely and commonly in communication, not about encoding more
or less new characters in order to propagate their use, as far as I
can see.

RP> Inaction is as political as action. "We are holders of the standards
RP> for the technology for encoding symbols, and we won't admit new symbols
RP> until they are widely used..." not necessarily the intent, but possibly
RP> the impact - that evolution of symbolic communication will be hampered?

No. As long as there is a private use area, people will have lots of
room to use most of the characters they need if they're a little less
commonly used. Evolution of symbolic communication will be hampered in
exactly the same way as ASCII hampered it, except that ASCII had no
room to include extra characters where needed.

  Philipp mailto:uzsv2k@uni-bonn.de
___________________
Chaos reigns within / Reflect, repent, and reboot / Order shall return



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