Documenting in Tamil Computing

From: Avarangal (avarangal@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Dec 15 2002 - 18:43:19 EST

  • Next message: Jungshik Shin: "Re: Documenting in Tamil Computing"

    fwd:
    fyi: Below is a copy of a mail I circulated on the subject of
    Documenting in Tamil Computing

    <<

    From: "sisrivas <sisrivas@yahoo.com>" <sisrivas@yahoo.com>
    Date: Sun Dec 15, 2002 11:24pm
    Subject: Documenting in Tamil Computing

    We need to be clear as to the direction that Tamil is going with regard to
    Tamil computing. I'm writing this again and again as there is some miss understanding about what font encodings are doing to Tamil computing. (TSC is Temporary. TAB is temporary, OldType(alas Bamini) is temporary.

    1/
    If you are preparing a Tamil document, intended for long term use you must
    use Unicode Encoding. Any other approach you take can be considered a waste of time if your content is intended for long term use.
    So do yourself and others a favour, prepare your documents using Tamil
    Unicode.

    see item 7 at the URL http://www.gbizg.com/Tamilfonts/ekalappai.htm on how
    to get Unicode keyboard drivers.

    Unfortunately Windows 95 and Windows 98 can only read Unicode pages. You can write in Unicode using Windows NT, 2000, XP and linux.

    So what can you do if you only have Windows 95, 98 or 3.1,
    Well sorry you need to use TSC or TAB or even OldType (alas Bamini)
    encoding. You can assume that these documents that you make will not be
    usable in the near future.

    Are you going to write a book, are you going to publish some research
    materials, etc, etc, do your self a favour. use Unicode and nothing else.

    DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME. TIME IS PRESIOUS.

    2/
    catch 22

    You know we all use Tamil eMail and for that we can not use Unicode.
    For Tamil eMail we use 8bit encoding called TSCii. I'm sorry to say that
    you still need to use this 8 bit encoding (which is not Unicode), because
    Unicode is not mature enough to be used in multilingual email yet.

    You just have to make do with the 8bit TSCII encoding for Tamil eMail.

    For more info
    http://www.geocities.com/avarangal/

    Sinnathuirai Srivas

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