From: Dean Snyder (dean.snyder@jhu.edu)
Date: Wed Apr 13 2005 - 09:52:09 CST
Kenneth Whistler wrote at 3:02 PM on Tuesday, April 12, 2005:
>The *stability* of published character names is far more important
>to the network of interdependent standards that refer to
>character encoding standards than is the correctness of the name.
>...
>Unicode character names are normative for the purposes of the
>character encoding standard and those other IT standards that
>reference it. They are also *immutable*, by action of both
>SC2 and the UTC, because change of character names is almost
>as disruptive of the standards as changing code points for
>characters would be.
It's simple - we can have our cake and eat it too.
Just add correct names to the existing ones, by following the time-
honored Unicode dictum, "You can add, but never subtract".
And so, we do the following, in the spirit of HYPEN-MINUS, making sure to
always maintain uniqueness for every addition:
LATIN SMALL LETTER AE -> LATIN SMALL LETTER AE-LATIN SMALL LIGATURE AE
SOLIDUS -> SOLIDUS-SLASH-FORWARD SLASH
Then you can use whatever sub-name you want. For those who need the old
incorrect names, they will still have them; for those who want the new
(politically) correct names, they too will be available.
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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