From: vunzndi@vfemail.net
Date: Mon Dec 08 2008 - 01:53:28 CST
It should be born in mind that whilst for most scripts the plan was to
put the characters in present day use in the BMP, this was not the
case with CJK ideographs, the number of characters was simply too
great to even consider doing this.
The IRG specifically considered this issue the result was II Core
which gives a list of everyday CJK characters it includes 62 plane 2
characters.
http://appsrv.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~irg/irg/IICore/IRGN1067R2_IICore22_MappingTable.txt
Unicode itself provides a good framework - supporting all 17 planes
should be much lower R & D cost than trying to decide which scripts to
support in an ad hoc manner.
John K
Quoting tex <textexin@xencraft.com>:
>
> Hi Chris, et al.
>
> GB18030 is a good rationale, but although it is a Chinese legal
> requirement, it isn't enforced except perhaps against the largest
> companies. So for some it represents a risk, but not an immediate
> priority.
>
> The most compelling arguments are those where a manager can see the
> use case and an immediate need.
>
> Customer requests (or complaints) and/or potential business tied to
> the requirement would be compelling.
>
> The truth is these characters are still infrequent in both occurance
> and demand, and most users would tolerate and work around it if they
> aren't supported. And a majority of software today still does not
> support the supplementary planes or supports it only with extra
> steps (patches, registry changes, special fonts...).
>
> So I think to motivate the industry and companies so they don't fall
> off a cliff (if and) when the characters become mandatory for
> business applications, it is necessary to have concrete examples
> that people can understand and accept as needing support.
>
> Being able to write everyday words like "lift", or place
> names, demonstrates that the character support is clearly needed (at
> least for some applications).
>
> It would be easier to make the case if users were demanding these
> characters, but at least for the companies I have spoken to, users
> are not insisting they should be supported. This could be due to
> lowered expectations, or they have plenty of workarounds.
>
> When I started to look at the question again recently, I was
> surprised at the number of BMP alternatives. (I am not a speaker of
> any of these languages so I can't attest to the quality or
> acceptability of the workarounds. I can only echo what I have been
> told or read, which is alternative spellings were acceptable.)
>
> If we want to raise awareness of the need for supplementary
> character support, then we need concrete examples (for which there
> aren't BMP alternatives). The theoretical and legal requirements are
> too thin for most businesses. Alternatively, we should clarify that
> the BMP is adequate for business applications and let the
> supplementary planes be for advanced applications or those with
> specialized language requirements.
>
> I am not advocating any position. I am trying to gauge the real
> business need for supplementary characters and have convincing
> examples for business managers that they can relate to.
>
> Tex
>
> Doesn't GB18030 have CJK characters corresponding to those in CJK
> Ideographs Ext. B? If an application wants to fully support GB18030
> characters - one way of accomplishing that might be through Unicode
> (mapping GB18030 characters to Unicode equivalents) ~ which would of
> course require support for characters beyond the BMP.
>
> GB18030 conformance might be a good commercial reason for supporting
> supplementary characters.
>
> - Chris
>
>
>
>
>
>
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