From: Kenneth Whistler (kenw@sybase.com)
Date: Tue Aug 02 2005 - 13:37:12 CDT
Gregg said:
> Possibly; but nobody is required to implement new characters.
The *standard* does not require anyone to implement new characters.
But implementations are often forced to implement them by
marketing and other concerns. Essentially, *any* database
software, for example, *must* support the entire set, and is
continually being updated as additions are made to the standard.
They don't have an opt-out option. And most infrastructure software,
a fortiori, has to deal correctly with the entire set.
You are confusing the lack of necessity for end user applications
to support input and layout of scripts of no interest to particular
end users with the layers of software below that don't need to
support layout, but which have algorithms that handle all characters.
And touching ASCII digits is a guaranteed recipe for havoc.
You can choose not to believe that, for whatever reason, but
that doesn't change the reality of the information technology
involved.
> Change is
> never free; but things that never change never improve.
And standards that change *too* much fail as standards.
Earlier Gregg stated:
> One of the more harmful myths occasionally propagated about Arabic et
> al. is that users of such RTL software use, or need, or must have, etc.
> support for LTR latinate text. I have yet to see any evidence in
> support of this assertion.
> Take a look at Arabic websites....Take Al-Jazeera for example. I
> would estimate 99.99% of the site is in Arabic.
Well, this is bogus on the face of it, because while
www.aljazeera.net is almost entirely Arabic, they also
publish english.aljazeera.net. And www.aljazeera.net itself
has that prominent "English" button on the home page, which
makes the page bidirectional, along with bidirectional ads
for vonas.net, and the "Powered By iHorizons" notice on the
foot of the page. You can't be 100% RTL if you are 0.1%
bidirectional.
*AND* the true test of course is View Source. As for all web pages,
the Al-Jazeera web pages are implemented in HTML. The HTML source
is full of HTML syntax, all in ASCII characters, and all
thoroughly and viciously bidirectional if you need to edit source.
So unless you are planning not only to reinvent the Unicode Standard
and everything that depends on it, but *also* to take on the W3C
to revise all the Web standards to clone all *their* syntax to
be Arabic only, as well as reinventing XML, I think you can take
it as a given that your notions are gaining no traction whatsoever
here.
--Ken
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