John Cowan wrote on 1999-07-19 18:11 UTC:
> Well, if you want to write Java or XML with Navajo names (the keywords
> have to be pseudo-English, but Java identifiers and XML element and
> attribute names don't), then you need to use the MODIFIER LETTER
> APOSTROPHE as part of those names. The punctuational apostrophes
> can't be used that way. So when you are keyboarding Navajo text,
> it pays to have the ' key map (at least sometimes) to U+02BC.
Hm, strange argument. Why should the apostrophe in "can't" not be a
letter if "can't" is just a variant spelling of of "cannot"? I get a bit
the suspicion that the original rationale behind MODIFIER LETTER
APOSTROPHE might be a load of nonsense (similar to the "rationale" for
the many digraphs in Latin B), but I am looking forward to first read
the essay that Michael Everson has announced on the topic before I form
an opinion. Probably someone made this distinction between punctuation
and letter apostrophe just up.
Before you write Java programs in Navaho, you should better worry
about allowing me to use identifiers such as
while (it's_not_yet_ready,_ol'_boy,_so_let's_rock_it_again) {
rock'n'roll();
}
Seriously, computer languages are rather controlled artificial languages
that are NOT intended for end users. They have developed their very own
and very special ideosyncracies (for very good reasons), i18n attempts
at programming language syntax could very easily be misguided badly, and
using Navajo in program identifiers is most certainly not what we should
consider to be good software engineering. Even French, Russian, and
Japanese identifiers are bad enough, especially when mixed in the same
program. Lucky you, if you never had to maintain one of these. ASCII for
identifiers is just fine, and if it forces software engineers to stay
with English identifiers, then trust me, this is a feature, not a bug.
Markus
(who has seen many programming languages with German keywords come and
then vanish quickly. Still remember Elan, the language in which Eumel
was written? :)
-- Markus G. Kuhn, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK Email: mkuhn at acm.org, WWW: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/>
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