From: Kenneth Whistler (kenw@sybase.com)
Date: Mon Aug 29 2005 - 19:45:18 CDT
Peter Kirk said:
> But surely, Ken, in saying that 10646 is not the relevant standard for
> these icons you are implying that there is no requirement to exchange
> these icons in text.
No. Surely, Peter, I am not.
They can be and are exchanged as icons "in text", but not "as text".
> On the other hand, people have given evidence of
> such requirements, for example in instruction manuals.
"In" instruction manuals, but with most commenters pointing out,
correctly, that most such instances are embeddings of graphics
in text.
> So, I wonder, is
> there in fact any good reason for not encoding these icons in
> Unicode/10646 as well,
Yes. And the UTC has already had such arguments and concluded that
as yet there is insufficient reason demonstrated *to* encode
many of these icons as *characters*.
> with mappings to and from 11581 as with many
> other ISO standards?
They wouldn't be "mapped" to 11581, because ISO/IEC 11581 isn't
a character *encoding* standard, but an icon standard. It
standardizes icons -- it doesn't encode them as characters.
> After all, we are apparently talking about less
> than 100 officially standardised icons, and there is no technical
> problem with including them - not necessarily in the BMP.
There is no clear technical reason to include them.
What *text* problem are you trying to solve by this encoding
that does not already have a solution available?
The scope of the Unicode Standard (and ISO/IEC 10646) does
not extend to encoding every symbol or sign that bears
meaning in the world.
This list has been round and round and round on this -- regular
as clockwork, about once a year, the topic comes up again.
And I see no indication that the UTC or WG2 are any closer
to concluding that bunches of icons should start being included
in the *character* encoding standards simply on the basis
of their being widespread and recognizable icons.
Where is the defensible line between "Fast Forward" and
"Women's Restroom" or "Right Lane Merge Ahead" or
"Danger Crocodiles No Swimming"?
http://www.everythingaustralian.com/15x15roadsig11.html
which, of course, has "glyphic" variants:
http://www.crocodilehunter.com/cart/prod534.htm
--Ken
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