On Tue, Mar 18, 2025 at 11:54 AM Jeff Davis <pg...@j-davis.com> wrote: > What do you think of Tom's argument that waiting to update Unicode is > what creates the problem in the first place? > > "by then they might well have instances of the newly-assigned code > points in their database"[1]
I know you weren't asking me, but FWIW, I think Tom has a point, but I also don't completely buy it. There's no technological safeguard against people using Unicode points before they're assigned, so we can't assume that no one ever does. And they probably do. I think Joe has the right idea. The way to actually provide the stability that people want here is to continue supporting old versions while adding support for new versions. Anything else we do works subject to assumptions: you can either assume that people don't use code points before they're assigned (as Tom proposes) or you can assume that not updating to newer Unicode specs will not cause any problems for anyone. Joe's proposal is unique in requiring no assumptions about what users will do or what they care about. It just works, period. The only disadvantage is that it's more work for us, but this problem has caused enough suffering over the years that I bet we can find hackers to implement it and maintain it on an ongoing basis without great difficulty. -- Robert Haas EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
