From: Peter Kirk (peterkirk@qaya.org)
Date: Wed Apr 20 2005 - 12:16:17 CST
On 20/04/2005 09:49, Doug Ewell wrote:
>Peter Kirk <peterkirk at qaya dot org> wrote:
>
>
>
>>I am well aware that names cannot be changed or replaced. But there is
>>nothing in the Unicode stability policy which rules out deprecation of
>>the entire list of character names. And I have only seen one previous
>>response which has specifically opposed this proposal.
>>
>>
>
>I specifically oppose this proposal.
>
>There are over 16,000 character names in the Unicode Standard, even
>after factoring out the mechanical ones like CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-4E00.
>Roughly how many of these are so hideously wrong that it justifies
>throwing out the entire list?
>
>
>
A list of character names is useful only if it is entirely reliable, or
at least is moving towards being so. If this list contains only one
error (and there are a lot more) which is not going to be corrected,
then the list is worthy of nothing but to be thrown out and replaced -
if only by another almost identical list, which can be corrected.
Andrew West wrote:
>Claiming the silence of the majority as evidence of support for one's position
>seems to be an unfortunately common ploy from some members of this list.
>
>
>
I made no such claim. I was simply responding to Mark's claim that it
"should be clear to you from the many responses on this topic" by
pointing out that there had been only one response on this part of the
topic.
But if there is a majority for not formally deprecating this unreliable
list, I shall let people continue to incorporate this set of errors into
their software. Just don't expect me to buy any software which uses it.
>a non-existent problem... all Unicode character names are adequate for their intended purpose
>
Totally untrue! Some of the errors are simply annoying, but others (if
displayed to users) cause users to choose the wrong character and so
lead to total confusion. Don't you think users would be confused if A
was called B and vice versa? Some of the errors are as blatant and
confusing as that, in some other script. Well, Andrew, you yourself have
mentioned the ZARQA/ZINOR mix-up - and I will get around to sending you
my list of such bloopers when I get home on Friday.
-- Peter Kirk peter@qaya.org (personal) peterkirk@qaya.org (work) http://www.qaya.org/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Apr 20 2005 - 13:35:25 CST