From: Doug Ewell (doug@ewellic.org)
Date: Sun Jan 04 2009 - 00:45:28 CST
Asmus Freytag <asmusf at ix dot netcom dot com> wrote:
>> Seems to me that "compatibility characters" means whatever you want
>> it to mean at a given moment.
>
> I simply follow the definition. See, for example the glossary:
>
> "/Compatibility Character. /
> A character that would not have been encoded except for compatibility
> and round-trip convertibility with other standards"
This definition also appears in Section 2.3 (p. 23) of TUS 5.0, but the
*very next sentence* says:
"They are variants of characters that already have encodings as normal
(that is, non-compatibility) characters in the Unicode Standard; as
such, they are more properly referred to as compatibility variants."
Now what?
Later:
> What is it with you people? Everything apparently must be black or
> white. Character coding is an exercise in dealing with shades of gray
> and edge cases.
At least now when I see a black-and-white statement such as "Unicode
does not encode idiosyncratic, personal, novel, or private-use
characters, nor does it encode logos or graphics," I know how to
interpret it.
I've been a huge and vocal supporter of the Unicode Standard for the
past 16 years, back before most people had heard of it, and this is by
far the most disappointed I have ever been in the Standard. This
decision will come back to haunt Unicode again and again.
-- Doug Ewell * Thornton, Colorado, USA * RFC 4645 * UTN #14 http://www.ewellic.org http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages ˆ
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