Re: Jumping Cursor. Was: Right-to-Left Punctuation Problem

From: Gregg Reynolds (unicode@arabink.com)
Date: Mon Aug 01 2005 - 17:43:34 CDT

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    John Hudson wrote:
    > Jony Rosenne wrote:
    >
    >> I object. The proposal, were it to be accepted, would create havoc.
    >
    >
    > I agree. The Unicode bidi algorithm is basically fine. The fact that

    Maybe so. I admit it is an impressive piece of work. And even useful,
    if you need to mix language directionalities in your text.

    Unfortunately, that is not what this is about. I'll say it yet again:
    Arabic (like other RTL written languages) is *monodirectional*. Where
    this idea of "inherent" bidirectionality got started I'd like to know,
    so I could deliver a scrumptious knuckle sandwich. Anybody who still
    buys into this pernicious piece of mythology is welcome to email me, and
    I will try to put the worms out of your head.

    The entire motivation behind strongly directional codepoints for digits,
    punctuation, etc., is to eliminate the odious, idiotic, and incredibly
    expensive bidi tax (how many $100 millions per year?) imposed on RTL
    language communities. (Just try to imagine an English encoding that
    required bidirectionality. So utterly ridiculous it would never even be
    considered. Yet here we are, with the *requirement* that RTL language
    software developers deal with the bidi algorithm. Smells like conspiracy?)

    I've often seem claims that this would "wreak havoc" or otherwise
    inconvenience existing software and data. Ok, there is likely some
    aspect of all of this that I haven't understood, but it sure doesn't
    look like havoc to me. I hope you or somebody will be kind enough to
    explain in some detail just how such new codepoints would cause
    problems. With an open mind, please.

    Respectvully,

    gregg



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