On Fri, Apr 27, 2001 at 01:04:26PM +0200, Karl Pentzlin wrote:
> In fact, I do not see any reason to use hex numbers in documents
> released for the general public. In my opinion, future print editions
> should use decimal numbers *primarily*.
The pages are set up in columns of 16 with the last digit along the
side. No one's going to spend the time to reset all that.
Furthermore, the Unicode standard is conceptually broken up into
blocks that are multiples of 16.
> On the other hand, "numbers" (i.e. decimal numbers) are a concept
> everybody is familiar with. Thus, why not say to the public simply,
> "Unicode gives every character a number", instead of geek speak like
> "Unicode gives every character a code point, and as we are very cute,
> we use a special numbering system with 16 digits designed for
> computer experts, and to use Unicode you have to become an expert too
> and have to learn this system"?
Because the public isn't supposed to use Unicode directly any more
than they are supposed to use the Win32 API directly? Most important
characters have a menomic reference on the keyboard in Windows or
Macintosh, and those that don't have a character map. Yes, if you
want to know Unicode very well, you should know computers well
enough to understand hex digits.
> If "character numbers" are at last used commonly, e.g. every Chinese
> businessman can spell his name to every secretary in the world, simply
> telling them the numbers.
Cool. What makes three - four - five - seven - one better than
eight - seven - zero - bee? (Which of course means that both of them
have to share a language, but that was assumed.) And since the
secretary is transcribing a language he knows (or the buisness
man's going to have memorize a lot of character's numbers), isn't
it more likely that the secretary will get the name in
transliteration?
An interface that most people can use is not going to require
looking characters up in big books containing every character in the
world and memorizing numbers.
-- David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org Pointless website: http://dvdeug.dhis.org "I don't care if Bill personally has my name and reads my email and laughs at me. In fact, I'd be rather honored." - Joseph_Greg
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Fri Jul 06 2001 - 00:17:16 EDT