From: Gregg Reynolds (unicode@arabink.com)
Date: Mon Aug 01 2005 - 17:43:34 CDT
John Hudson wrote:
> Jony Rosenne wrote:
>
>> I object. The proposal, were it to be accepted, would create havoc.
>
>
> I agree. The Unicode bidi algorithm is basically fine. The fact that
Maybe so. I admit it is an impressive piece of work. And even useful,
if you need to mix language directionalities in your text.
Unfortunately, that is not what this is about. I'll say it yet again:
Arabic (like other RTL written languages) is *monodirectional*. Where
this idea of "inherent" bidirectionality got started I'd like to know,
so I could deliver a scrumptious knuckle sandwich. Anybody who still
buys into this pernicious piece of mythology is welcome to email me, and
I will try to put the worms out of your head.
The entire motivation behind strongly directional codepoints for digits,
punctuation, etc., is to eliminate the odious, idiotic, and incredibly
expensive bidi tax (how many $100 millions per year?) imposed on RTL
language communities. (Just try to imagine an English encoding that
required bidirectionality. So utterly ridiculous it would never even be
considered. Yet here we are, with the *requirement* that RTL language
software developers deal with the bidi algorithm. Smells like conspiracy?)
I've often seem claims that this would "wreak havoc" or otherwise
inconvenience existing software and data. Ok, there is likely some
aspect of all of this that I haven't understood, but it sure doesn't
look like havoc to me. I hope you or somebody will be kind enough to
explain in some detail just how such new codepoints would cause
problems. With an open mind, please.
Respectvully,
gregg
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