Re: Terminal Emulation

From: Michael Everson (everson@indigo.ie)
Date: Fri Oct 30 1998 - 13:49:09 EST


Ar 07:53 -0800 1998-10-30, scríobh Doug Ewell:

>> OK, but the UCS will be used for a long long long long time.
>> Probably longer than terminal emulation.
>
>Michael, I have never understood this particular justification for
>excluding Frank's terminal graphics characters. Compatibility with
>existing standards and practices (some of which may be anachronistic)
>has always been a priority for the designers of Unicode.

Doug, the UCS will be used for _centuries_, will it not?

>Think of the large numbers of precomposed characters that are
>technically unnecessary in Unicode because of the ability of a GUI
>to use combining characters. Or all the other box-drawing characters
>and upper-half/lower-half math symbols that a GUI could render
>without special glyphs. They are there because character-mode
>systems are still out there, and *nobody knows* how long they will
>last, so they deserve to be supported by Unicode as well.

Well, you got me there.

>Unicode is only a few years old, and already it is in version 2.1.5
>(with promises of a version 3.0 around the corner). Changes have
>been made to the standard, and they will continue to be made in the
>future. There's no need to dismiss the terminal graphics proposal
>on the basis that at some point in the unknown future, the characters
>MAY no longer be necessary. If that is really true, and can be
>proven, then the Consortium can look into removing them. I know
>that removing characters from the standard is a deprecated practice,
>but to me that just proves that one of the basic premises of Unicode
>is, as it should be, to include characters of debatable usefulness
>rather than excluding them.

No way! Include characters of limited usefulness, perhaps. But not of
debatable usefulness.

>Excluding the hex-byte characters (which almost nobody seems to like),
>we're only talking about 256 characters, aren't we? I guess I don't
>understand why the opposition is so vigorous.

I think they would be a waste of BMP space, personally. I already suggested
Plane 1.

--
Michael Everson, Everson Gunn Teoranta ** http://www.indigo.ie/egt
15 Port Chaeimhghein Íochtarach; Baile Átha Cliath 2; Éire/Ireland
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