Re: Level of Unicode support required for various languages

On 29/10/2007, Peter Constable <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> I guess I assumed that that was never intended to provide a substitute for encoding the characters needed for Zhuang text -- it would be a terrible way to represent Zhuang text, though I suppose you can argue (as you have done) that it's valid.

I'm sure that John has never suggested that IDS sequences should be a
substitute for encoding, merely that given what the Unicode Standard
currently says, it would be a feasible interim solution.

The question is just what exactly the intent of that paragraph in the
Unicode Standard was. It sure sounds to me as if it is suggesting (and
Unicode is sanctioning) a mechanism for component based represention
of unencoded ideographs -- if the character was already encoded why
would you want the rendering system to render an IDS as a single glyph
and treat it as a single unit for editing purposes?

I guess it must have been written at a time when people didn't worry
so much about security and spoofing issues. I would suggest that the
UTC should consider removing the offending paragraph at the earliest
opportunity, and replace it with a statement that IDS sequences are
intended to be rendered as a visible sequence of IDC characters and
ideographic components, and not composed into a single glyph. But then
maybe it is too late for that now ?

Andrew