Michael (michka) Kaplan wrote:
> I think the biggest problem with such a system is that it
> encourages people to use a PUA pseudo-encoding rather
> than do the work to encode a new script if it needs to
> be encoded. It also encourages private use to become more
> like semi-private use, and this is the kind of thing that
> should be rather vehemently discouraged.
This is 100% true, and several other people have posted similar comments.
But I feel that it is the very existence of the PUA that causes this risk,
not the attempts to (self-)organize its usage.
On the other hand, if the PUA did not exist at all, there would be much more
pressure to encode scripts and single characters that have little or no
reason to be encoded).
And there would be more pressure to add quick and, probably, wrong encodings
for scripts that need years of careful thinking and discussion (see the
recent discussion about hieroglyphs).
All this determines that minorities of people has to live with "PUA
pseudo-encodings" for a considerable part of their activity (whether this is
seriously studying writing systems, or frivolously playing with alphabets).
> The current common uses of the PUA, as mentioned by
> Ken in his message:
> A. Intentional private use for non-exchanged data [...]
> B. Groups working on more-or-less experimental encodings [...]
> C. Scripts that will pretty much not ever be encoded [...]
I agree that little or no coordination is needed for case A. If PUA
codepoints remain totally internal to an application, there is going to be
no interchange problem at all, as far as you are sure that they will not
leak out to the external world. (But this private usage is *so* private,
that I wonder why using PUA codepoints at all).
But for cases A and B, IMHO, you underestimate the need for exchanging PUA
data.
It is true that such PUA encodings will only exist within private groups,
but these groups are not necessarily as closed, as small, and as short-lived
as you seem to imply. Examples:
- Groups studying ancient scripts and their encodings may work for decades,
and their members may be split in the universities of the whole globe;
- Some fantasy scripts have had enthusiasts for half a century now, and
there is no sign that this trend is going to decrease in the Internet era
(at the contrary, they found the teleport device that enables them to meet
in a virtual Elves' Land :-);
- Some living languages may experiment for years with a certain script,
before the community decides that that is their way, and eventually knock at
Unicode's door.
_ Marco
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Fri Jul 06 2001 - 00:17:16 EDT