From: Peter Kirk (peterkirk@qaya.org)
Date: Wed Apr 27 2005 - 03:22:53 CST
On 27/04/2005 02:07, John Hudson wrote:
> ... I took Ken to mean, very simply, that the UTC neither recommends
> for nor recommends against the use of Unicode character names in user
> interfaces, which is hardly surprising since user interfaces fall well
> outside the mandate of the UTC. ... If the names are not, in fact,
> ideal for such purposes, blame UI developers, not the UTC, who are
> perfectly justified in 'sitting on the fence', as you put it. I'm sure
> they occupy a similar position with regard to the price of tea in China.
>
Fair enough, John and also Peter. The UTC are within their rights to sit
on the fence, although I don't think this is helpful to users who are
confused. Also, the statement which Otto quoted from TUS 16.1 suggests
to me that the UTC is taking a position, but an incomplete and confusing
one, on what is suitable for user interfaces. So I will follow Asmus'
latest advice and make a formal proposal.
But let me bring this back into the context of the discussion. Otto had
written the following:
> I understand Asmus's claims, and TUS 16.1, thusly:
> - The character names proper are meant as unique and immutable
> identifiers.
> - The character names plus the annotations (particularly the aliases) are
> suitable for a user interface.
In other words, he was understanding Asmus and TUS as making a positive
recommendation that "The character names plus the annotations
(particularly the aliases) are suitable for a user interface". My
response to that was that he is incorrect, because Asmus specifically
made no such recommendation - in fact his recommendation seemed to me to
be against this. And I mentioned Ken because he also made no
recommendation for this - and also of course none against it. Therefore,
if Otto and others wish to use character names plus annotations in a
user interface, they cannot claim that they are following TUS or UTC
recommendations.
-- Peter Kirk peter@qaya.org (personal) peterkirk@qaya.org (work) http://www.qaya.org/ -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.10.3 - Release Date: 25/04/2005
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