From: Peter Kirk (peterkirk@qaya.org)
Date: Tue Jan 20 2004 - 19:36:36 EST
On 20/01/2004 11:27, Kenneth Whistler wrote:
> ...
>
>If you are representing Han data as Unicode plain text, and you
>run into a "newly discovered character", you are stuck. Your options
>are:
>
> 1. Use a "geta" (U+3013), i.e. throw up your hands and punt.
>
> 2. Use an Ideographic Description Sequence to get an approximate
> description as a substitute.
>
> 3. Ask the character encoding committees to encode the character
> (a process that will take a long while).
>
> 4. Ask the character encoding committees to make the character
> representable by a designated variation sequence (a process
> that also make take a long while, but which could shortcircuit
> things considerably if the known lists of these things were
> all processed ahead of time).
>
>--Ken
>
>
>
>
Presumably the same principles can be applied when you run into a newly
discovered (probably archaic) cuneiform character. Except that for some
reason, Ken, you classified "dynamic cuneiform" as Type VI: Glyph
Description Language. Why can't it be seen as Type V: Ideographic
Character Description, encoded with "pseudo-operator-like" symbols (Dean
proposed just 14 of them)? That would provide a solution for newly
discovered cuneiform as well as for newly discovered Han.
I am not suggesting that this model should be used for common cuneiform
characters any more than for common CJK characters; the static model,
which was once agreed on, can stand. I am suggesting it only as a
mechanism for describing newly discovered characters.
And then if a font designer chooses to provide a glyph and a mechanism
for displaying it when the corresponding ideographic description
sequence is encountered, whether in Han or in cuneiform, presumably that
is permitted. Ken, you wrote
>There is no
>requirement for a conformant Unicode renderer to actually attempt
>a rendering of the Han character so described.
>
- but your wording implies that a renderer may do so if it wishes,
although with current technology more or less the only way it can do so
is to substitute a predefined glyph.
-- Peter Kirk peter@qaya.org (personal) peterkirk@qaya.org (work) http://www.qaya.org/
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