Re: Unicode Stability (Was: Re: E0000 Language Tags for Some Obscure Languages)

From: Jeroen Ruigrok/asmodai (asmodai@wxs.nl)
Date: Fri Mar 04 2005 - 11:27:20 CST

  • Next message: Peter Kirk: "Re: Ambiguity and disunification"

    -On [20050303 20:52], Asmus Freytag (asmusf@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
    >You are asking an excellent question, which addresses a perspective that is
    >certainly motivate by the types of expierence you cite:

    -blush-

    >On the second level, Unicode describes how to encode content. Unlike
    >software, data rarely (if ever) gets updated once it exists. Requiring
    >existing data to be updated would effectively mean to abandon it to
    >inaccessibility after a few years. That's totally contrary to Unicode's
    >aims.

    >On the third level, there may be a time, sometime in the mists of the
    >future, when it's time to start over. In terms of Unicode that would be
    >whenever there's enough reason and momentum behind a successor standard.
    >However, as we have seen when we created the Unicode Standard,
    >existing character sets have a way of forcing a new standard to be
    >compatible, lest it be a non-starter. The same pressure, magnified, would
    >face any successor standard to the Unicode Standard.

    Given these points, wouldn't an ever-expanding standard like Unicode be a
    cause to data bloat at one point? Since you will need continuous larger
    encoding space to encode certain specific characters?

    Not to mention that the supporting fonts will get bigger and bigger.

    Although I have no idea how much of a problem it is given storage prices
    nowadays.

    Anyone clued about this? I am a programmer by nature and very much
    interested in languages (love the CJKV book) so hence I am lurking on the
    Unicode list (amongst others), so eager to learn. : )

    -- 
    Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven <asmodai(at)wxs.nl> / asmodai / kita no mono
    Free Tibet! http://www.savetibet.org/ | http://ashemedai.deviantart.com/
    http://www.tendra.org/   | http://www.in-nomine.org/
    The riddle master himself lost the key to his own riddles one day, and
    found it again at the bottom of his heart.
    


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