RE: Unicode Stability

From: Peter Constable (petercon@microsoft.com)
Date: Wed Mar 02 2005 - 08:56:07 CST

  • Next message: Peter Constable: "RE: Script Continuums (Was: Re: Greek glyphs)"

    > From: unicode-bounce@unicode.org [mailto:unicode-bounce@unicode.org]
    On
    > Behalf Of Michael Everson
    > Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 3:22 AM
    > To: Unicode Discussion
    > Subject: RE: Unicode Stability
    >
    > At 06:46 +0200 2005-03-02, Jony Rosenne wrote:
    >
    > >>"Stability" in a standard does not mean that the standard never
    > >>changes. It means that, as much as possible, it does not change in
    > >>a way that causes existing implementations or data to break.
    > >
    > >The recently accepted proposals for Hebrew do just that, they change
    the
    > >meaning of existing data.
    >
    > That is true of any disunification.

    No, Michael, don't take his bait. The proposals accepted for Hebrew
    don't change the meaning of data. The only issue is that the qamats
    qatan can't be implemented in existing or new fonts without awkwardness.
    But as a font implementer I take it as fundamental that I cannot change
    fonts in a way that alters existing documents, precisely so that the
    meaning of existing data is not affected.

    Jony's claim is simply incorrect: meaning of existing Hebrew data is not
    changed by the recently-accepted Hebrew proposals. The only thing that
    poses a risk to existing data is having implementers do the wrong thing
    when they update their products, but that is always the case.

    Peter Constable



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Mar 02 2005 - 08:58:03 CST