From: Hans Aberg (haberg@math.su.se)
Date: Sun Jan 04 2009 - 15:47:23 CST
On 4 Jan 2009, at 19:29, Doug Ewell wrote:
>> But might it not be possible to use Internet technologies to
>> resolve those conflicts automatically? For example, one might
>> identify them say via a hash code, like in magnet links
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_link
>
> One problem might be that a magnet link would provide only a hash
> value of the private agreement, not the agreement itself or a link
> to it. To me, "transmitting the private agreement" means not only
> uniquely identifying it, but also giving the user a chance to access
> it and use it to decode the text.
>
> For years my Ewellic-script pages written using the ConScript
> encoding have carried an HTML comment saying so, and providing a
> link to the spec, but nobody would ever see that unless they
> selected "View Source." A more standard and accessible approach
> would be welcome.
The idea would be that the hash code is for a file containing all
information needed for its use, including typesetting - perhaps
including some default glyph. Then the hash code should be rich enough
making it unlikely that independently made private files have the same
- they need then not check if it already exists. One then need some
URL to search for it, but the URL need not be fixed - any one with
search capabilities will suffice.
>> It would require a way to find the character hash code and the
>> computer software knowing how to search for them. For example, if
>> there is a Unicode character meaning "PUA URI", then what follows
>> could be the hash code identifying it.
>
> In the past I would have said, "Unicode would never encode such a
> character," but given recent events I can no longer make such a
> black-and-white statement about any encodable entity. However,
> considering the animosity often shown toward use of the PUA, it
> seems improbable.
I am aware of that it is sort of is against the current Unicode
principles. But the PUA characters, except for temporary private use,
will otherwise be quite unusable. Especially if one gets a file a few
years old, and it uses some private characters, it may be quite
impossible to read it. By contrast, archiving is for these practical
purposes unlimited. So if there is an convenient search method, it
will be easy to read such a file.
Hans Åberg
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