Unicode's Mandate

From: UList@dfa-mail.com
Date: Fri Mar 04 2005 - 03:46:20 CST

  • Next message: Jon Hanna: "RE: Unicode's Mandate"

    I believe Unicode's mandate is to go from:

    POINT A:
    Multilingual computing is a complete mess

    to

    POINT B:
    Multilingual computing is a completely predictable,
    standardized, coherent, unified system.

    I do not believe Unicode's mandate is to go from:

    POINT A:
    Multilingual computing is a complete mess

    to

    POINT B:
    Multilingual computing is a semi-standardized
    semi-coherent, semi-unified system,
    with large areas handed over to remain a
    completely unpredictable, permanent mess
    in outside, proprietary hands.

    The decision to draw a line between characterhood and basic presentation forms
    is a great organizational technique -- *within* the larger whole of Unicode's work.

    The decision to farm out responsibility for a large part of handling basic
    presentation shapes, by means of "language tags" -- with no standard language
    tag technology in effect or on the horizon -- does not appear to be very wise
    at the moment. I can only hope the situation improves -- and improves
    including the needs of obscure script variants, co-equal to major ones.

    The final decision, that Unicode isn't even to be *concerned* with what
    happens to basic presentation forms, seems utterly irresponsible.

    IMHO
    Doug



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