Re: Language tags (as if there weren't enough to do)

From: John Cowan (cowan@locke.ccil.org)
Date: Fri Oct 02 1998 - 12:46:33 EDT


Michael Everson wrote:

> Well, they are METACHARACTERS. Your editing software could turn them on and
> off like other invisibles. But *obviously* they have to be visible (and as
> such "graphic characters") when you type them or you could never see what
> you wrote.

The same might be said of the control characters in the General
Punctuation block at 202A-202E or 206A-206F. During typing, it's
useful to have a glyph for them, but they are not graphic characters.

> The Outer Planes have no magic in them that 6 columns in the BMP
> couldn't achieve. Defined as metacharacters they could simply be used
> without escape sequences or whatever it was that people wanted to avoid by
> chucking them into the Outer Planes.

They were put on the Astral Planes solely for political reasons.
I proposed a much-reduced set on the BMP (just A-Z, 0-9, and hyphus,
the characters in the long names) and was told that the BMP was
a sacred space, etc. etc.

-- 
John Cowan	http://www.ccil.org/~cowan		cowan@ccil.org
	You tollerday donsk?  N.  You tolkatiff scowegian?  Nn.
	You spigotty anglease?  Nnn.  You phonio saxo?  Nnnn.
		Clear all so!  'Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)



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