From: Dean Snyder (dean.snyder@jhu.edu)
Date: Thu Apr 07 2005 - 18:02:35 CST
John Hudson wrote at 2:45 PM on Thursday, April 7, 2005:
>I read Philippe's suggestion as changing the Malayalam zero character to
>a 1/2 character, and then re-encoding the zero character, i.e. not
>simply changing the existing zero glyph.
Huh?
This is how Philippe sums up, after addressing one scenario involving
possible ISCII legacy issues:
"So your comment rather suggests the addition of U+0D70 MALAYALAM DIGIT
ONE HALF... with the glyph currently shown for MALAYALAM DIGIT ZERO, this
glyph being corrected on the chart (this
would minimize the impact because no other character properties would
need to be changed)..."
>Ken's response was that receiving one e-mail from one person claiming an
>error in something that has been reviewed by Indian standards bodies, a
>native Malayalam speaker on the UTC, etc. was not grounds for changing
>anything.
But all those observations are obvious before Ken wrote them. What was
striking about Ken's remarks, and what I addressed in my response, was
that he ended by saying, "I consider the chances that the UTC will start
'fixing' Malayalam digit zero ALONG THE LINES that Philippe has suggested
to be, well, close to zero." [Emphasis added to show that Ken was talking
about the WAY the UTC would not fix this, and not that they wouldn't fix
it, although he made the case that he didn't think it needed fixing.]
But, as it turns out, if the UTC did need to fix this, it might be
precisely along the lines Philippe suggested - change the current zero
glyph, add a new 1/2 glyph.
>And if anything were to be changed, it would be a simple glyph change in
the charts and not a convoluted and unstable change of character codes,
which is what Philippe seemed to be suggesting, unless both Ken and I
read his message wrong.
I don't know the reasons, but if you are characterizing Philippe's
suggestion thusly, you are both wrong.
>As for Ken's use of the phrase 'next to zero', that seemed very obviously
>a joke based on the topic under discussion.
Of course. But I refrained, in my initial response, from calling this the
rude, smug, and cutesy brush off it is.
Respectfully,
Dean A. Snyder
Assistant Research Scholar
Manager, Digital Hammurabi Project
Computer Science Department
Whiting School of Engineering
218C New Engineering Building
3400 North Charles Street
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Maryland, USA 21218
office: 410 516-6850
cell: 717 817-4897
www.jhu.edu/digitalhammurabi/
http://users.adelphia.net/~deansnyder/
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