Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] Unicode vs. legacy character sets

[Tom Lord]

    > From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" <address@hidden>

    >     Tom> In principle, Unicode could be upwardly compatibly extended
    >     Tom> in ways that "undo" the unification.

    > No, it can't.  The Unicode _standard_ could be extended.  But private
    > extensions are not Unicode, and it's back to the Tower of Babel.

I only meant to point out a path for dissent from the unification
decisions (the more of which I read about the more they make sense to
me, btw).

Indeed -- make a hostile fork but get enough people behind and then,
boom, that's the new standard.   I don't think it would work but if
the dissenters have a compelling point, than it will.


    >     Tom> I'm willing to have libhackerlab (hence Pika and arch) use an
    >     Tom> _extended_ Unicode.  Standardizing, within those libraries
    >     Tom> and programs on assigning-by-convention some private-use
    >     Tom> codepoints to un-unified characters.

    > Don't.  Start by finding out what you can already do within Unicode.

The primary point being that it makes little difference to anything
that's in or planned for hackerlab and Pika anytime soon -- swap out
some consortium data files for other data files and there you go.


    > (1) There is already standardization work going on at ISO 10646 (the
    > ISO group that certifies characters) on adding tens of thousands of
    > Han characters as an "extended ideographic plane".  I haven't been
    > following the discussion closely, but as of a couple of years ago
    > there was a strong contingent in favor of doing a fair amount of
    > "de-unification".

I can believe that.   As I've read more since the thread you responded
to, I've concluded that the unification issue is "colder" than I
thought and headed towards a peaceful resolution.


    > (2) You can already portably de-unify Han characters by use of Plane
    > 14 language tags.  

Do these comprise a stateful encoding?   _That_ is something I have no
intention of supporting in hackerlab/pika, _perhaps_ with the
exception of direction markers (where they matter).

Mostly, the plan is to wind up with attributed text as one of the
fundamental string types.


    >     Tom> Beyond that -- it could provide a practical demonstration (or
    >     Tom> refutation) of the benefits of undoing the unification in
    >     Tom> Unicode.

    > Nope.  "De gustibus non disputandum."  You may convince the
    > unconvinced, but you won't change the minds of the convinced.

It was just a thought.  The "fork, don't complain" sentiment.

-t