From owner-freebsd-hackers Wed Apr 5 17:19:57 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from phobos.illtel.denver.co.us (dsl-206.169.4.82.wenet.com [206.169.4.82]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7E1B137B6CB for ; Wed, 5 Apr 2000 17:19:54 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from abelits@phobos.illtel.denver.co.us) Received: from localhost (abelits@localhost) by phobos.illtel.denver.co.us (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id RAA15549; Wed, 5 Apr 2000 17:21:07 -0700 Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2000 17:21:07 -0700 (PDT) From: Alex Belits To: "G. Adam Stanislav" Cc: Jason , freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Unicode on FreeBSD In-Reply-To: <20000405182234.A226@whizkidtech.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Wed, 5 Apr 2000, G. Adam Stanislav wrote: > > Lack of extensibility and variants. Don't they just love the great > >extensibility means aka non-standardized and non-standardizable "private > >use area" that defeats the whole idea of having a standard charset? > > Absurd! The private use area is for application specific usage. > Suppose you want to design a database of cleaning supplies. You create > a font for the use with your application, which will draw soap, mop, > towel, and things like that. These are not in Unicode, and your odds > of convincing the Consortium to include them are slim. So, your > application will assign points within the private use are to soap, > mop, towel, etc. This is what it was intended for, however this is not how it is used. I understand why Unicode Consortium is unlikely to include Klingon alphabet into "blessed" by them charset, however the use of private area for Klingon is hardly application-specific. When instead of fictional (even though relatively well-known) charset the question is about the representation of "obscure" or even hypothetic details of some real-world charset, things become much more hairy. Labeling of charsets and languages in multiple-charsets environment (even if in the case of Klingon the "charset" is Unicode with something added in the private area) can eliminate ambigiuty without involving ISO, Unicode consortium, etc. and without destabilizing "standards" by constant changes. > You are fighting wind mills, my friend. [ witty comment about Klingons and windmills is left as an exercise to the reader ;-) ] -- Alex ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Excellent.. now give users the option to cut your hair you hippie! -- Anonymous Coward To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message