From: Andrew C. West (andrewcwest@alumni.princeton.edu)
Date: Fri Jun 27 2003 - 07:47:52 EDT
On Fri, 27 Jun 2003 04:22:30 -0500, Peter_Constable@sil.org wrote:
> I just have a hard time believing that 50 years from now our grandchildren
> won't look back, "What were they thinking? So it took them a couple of
> years to figure out canonical ordering and normalization; why on earth
> didn't they work that out first before setting things in stone, rather
> than saddling us with this hodgepodge of ad hoc workarounds? How short
> sighted." As Rick said, I know this will get shot down; don't bother
> telling me so.
I have to agree 100% with Peter on this. The potential fiasco with regards to
Mongolian Free Variation Selectors is another area where our grandchildren are
going to be weeping with despair if we are not careful. The standardized
variants for Mongolian were set in stone by Unicode based on an unfortunate but
understandable misunderstanding of the infamous TR170, and now that it is
apparent from Chinese and Mongolian sources that Unicode had got hold of
completely the wrong end of the stick (the defined standardized variants are
actually intended for use in isolation only, and the same MFVS that selects one
variant form in isolation may be used to select a completely different variant
within running text ... which of course it can't according to the Standardized
Variants document), instead of just wiping the slate clean and redefining a new
and consistant set of standardized variants that correspond to actual usage
within China and Mongolia, Unicode is determined to preserve the original
erroneous standardised variants come hell or high water - even though no-one has
ever seriously used them yet (well, the Chinese and Mongolians will go ahead and
do it their way whatever Unicode decides).
And before Peter suggests it, I have already suggested elsewhere that if Unicode
can't fix past errors, the only course might be for Unicode to deprecate the
MFVSs, and start again from scratch - didn't go down too well!
Andrew
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