What can be encoded in 2011? (from Re: On the possibility of encoding webdings in Unicode)

From: William_J_G Overington (wjgo_10009@btinternet.com)
Date: Thu Jan 27 2011 - 11:15:47 CST

  • Next message: Neil Harris: "Re: On the possibility of encoding webdings in Unicode (from Re: square bullets added to unicode.)"

    On Thursday 27 January 2011, Doug Ewell <doug@ewellic.org> wrote:
     
    > The UTC and WG2 do have a set of principles and policies for what sort of things are appropriate to encode in a character encoding and what sort of things are not.  Regardless of whether any of those principles were compromised by encoding the emoji, the door is NOT wide open for adding all kinds of encodable "stuff" to Unicode.
     
    Well, "compromised" is one way of expressing it. The phrase "updated by decisions made due to modern needs" is another way of expressing it.
     
    > The fact that there are 865,000 unassigned code points does NOT change this.  It would not matter if there were 865 million.
     
    Well, when there was only plane 0 many of the things that have since been encoded in plane 1 and plane 2 could not have been encoded, due to space considerations. Plenty of space is no reason to encode just anything, yet plenty of space does allow for encoding things that have merit for encoding that could not have been encoded before that space was available.
     
    > This needs to be an FAQ, if it is not already.  I've seen several people besides William express this view; William is merely one of the most persistent.
     
    Yes, an FAQ would be fine. Yet please let it be written on decisions taken in 2011 on the state of the art in encoding issues in 2011, not on decisions taken in the twentieth century. Those early decisions were necessary at the time in the context of the time, yet need to be reviewed in the light of the current state of the art in 2011, current research thinking in 2011 and the needs of 2011.
     
    I feel that if the Unicode Technical Committee were to hold a Public Review on whether to encode some localizable sentences in plane 7 then there is a good chance that great progress could be made. I feel that whether that Public Review is held in 2011 should be a decision made in 2011 by the Unicode Technical Committee based on the state of the art in 2011, current research thinking in 2011 and the needs of 2011.
     
    The holding of a Public Review on whether to encode some localizable sentences in plane 7 would not prejudge the result of the Public Review. 
     
    William Overington
     
    27 January 2011
     

    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu Jan 27 2011 - 11:20:14 CST