From: Peter Constable (petercon@microsoft.com)
Date: Sun Apr 03 2011 - 17:32:30 CDT
From: unicode-bounce@unicode.org [mailto:unicode-bounce@unicode.org] On Behalf Of Michael Everson
>> In case not, I consider encoding of characters for hatches to be an extremely bad idea: these are not characters but graphic fills, of which there are a vast number.
> They are merely an extension of a small set of such fills, which have
> been standardized for centuries. It is a mistake to suggest that this is
> an endless set. The specific fill patterns and their meanings are in fact
> well-defined within a number of traditions, as shown in the proposal.
This is really bad judgment IMO, coming from someone who ought to have good sense about character encoding. The existing characters came from an age of non-graphic / character-only computer displays and are encoded purely for legacy reasons, not because it today's world of graphical user interfaces it's a good idea to encode them as graphic characters. In WG2, we recently saw a preliminary proposal from China in which they proposed some line-drawing characters, and it was explained to them why the existing characters are encoded and why adding new characters was not a good idea, and they understood that explanation and agreed. I hope Ireland's NB will likewise show good judgment.
Peter
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