Re: Changing UCA primary weights (bad idea)

From: Michael Everson (everson@evertype.com)
Date: Sat Jul 10 2004 - 06:20:14 CDT

  • Next message: Peter Kirk: "Re: Changing UCA primary weights (bad idea)"

    At 17:34 -0700 2004-07-09, Mark Davis wrote:

    >What I think we should be examining is which of the items that are not
    >interfiled (to use your phrasing) should be, if any. I don't think
    >everything should be. In particular, I think John's list is the list we
    >should be focusing on.

    I think most of what is in John [Cowan]'s list
    are letters which are quite properly not
    interfiled with "base" letters. The African hook
    letters (which I have mentioned many times, and
    which you have ignored in favour of the Danish
    letters you are more familiar with) are there.

    > > John's list?
    >
    >That's was in my original mail, that you were commenting on when you changed
    >the subject line, but which you didn't apparently didn't bother to actually
    >read.

    Sweet of you to say.

    > > My point is made here. It is really only in
    >> initial position where this is likely to be
    >> noticed.
    >
    >This is incorrect. It will make a difference in other positions. Sorting
    >"Søren" after "Sozar" in a long list, if someone isn't expecting it, will
    >cause problems. They look for it after "Soret", don't see it on the page,
    >and assume it isn't there; fooled by the fact that it is on a completely
    >different page.

    No way! Do you expect your default tailorable
    template to suddenly and magically relieve the
    user of the problems of long lists and multi-page
    typesetting? Sheesh. No matter how much you
    jiggle either the template or a tailoring for
    people who only know the letters A-Z, there will
    be edge cases which will fail this kind of test.

    >Remember that the collation sequence is also used for language-sensitive
    >matching as well as sorting.

    I remember.

    > > What I want is the status quo, however.
    >> Leave the template and its principles alone.
    >
    >Stability is important, and we want to consider that very carefully before
    >making any change. However, I believe that the current way we handle a few
    >characters in UCA is distinctly suboptimal, and worth considering.

    John [Cowan]'s list is not "a few characters".

    -- 
    Michael Everson * * Everson Typography *  * http://www.evertype.com
    


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