From: Patrick Andries (Patrick.Andries@xcential.com)
Date: Sat May 15 2004 - 18:14:31 CDT
Jony Rosenne a écrit :
>
>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: unicode-bounce@unicode.org
>>[mailto:unicode-bounce@unicode.org] On Behalf Of Patrick Andries
>>Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 11:16 PM
>>To: Michael Everson
>>Cc: unicode@unicode.org
>>Subject: Majority of community important, inclusion not
>>forcing people to do anything (Re: [BULK] - Re: Interleaved
>>collation of related scripts)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>...
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>>>Unicode doesn't force people to do anything. (Well, apart from using
>>>smart font technology for a lot of scripts, but that's not relevant
>>>here.) Unicode makes characters available for those who
>>>
>>>
>>wish to use them.
>>
>>[PA] Surely Unicode does not make all characters available :
>>it rejects
>>some and unifies some. Why reject or unify if their inclusion
>>would not
>>pose a problem ? I somehow have the impression that the sheer
>>presence
>>of characters (duplicates for instance) does have an effect
>>on users and
>>forces certain processing (normalisation sometimes, decomposition in
>>some cases, changing transcoding filters in other cases
>>(what are the
>>Coptic users having Coptic texts encoded as Greek data going to do?),
>>changing/adding Cmap for some fonts (Coptic ones previously indexed
>>with Greek code points ?)), etc. to achieve the desired effect.
>>
>>P. A.
>>
>>
>>
>
>Having Qamats Qatan as a regular Unicode character will have an effect on
>the majority of users who do not know or care for the distinction.
>
>If anything, it should be some kind of glyph variant.
>
>
>
[PA2] I suspect you are going to an answer to the effect that you are
not anymore forced to use Qamats Qatan in Hebrew than you are to use the
cedilla in English for « façade». But, while this is true, if you
compare a Unicode script that used to not include "ç" or a combining
cedilla with the new one that now includes it, this has an effect on
algorithms (searching, transcoding, normalisation, even fonts for
instance) and in this sense Unicode forces people do something about it
(not that it is bad to have this ripple effect).
If adding new scripts does not force one to use them, « Unicode doesn't
force people to do anything » and space is not an issue, why not include
new Punic and Neo-punic scripts along the proposed Phoneician ? After
all, I may want to show the diachronic evolution of Phoenician (Semitic)
words (from 1200 BC to 200 AD for instance) in plain text (XML). Why
unify Phoenician with Punic and Neo-Punic ? No one will be forced to
use Punic and Neo-Punic after all. Surely there must be a reason why you
proposed a unification (and it may make perfect sense). Is it only for
genealogical reasons or because the non consulted community of Punic
users (which probably is any case too conservative in the eyes of some)
did request unification ?
P. A.
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