Apologies in advance to Jungshik for reposting this to the list. I felt the usual conditions applied: general interest to the list, no harm done to Jungshik, etc.
Jungshik Shin <jshin at mailaps dot org> wrote: >> This helps perpetuate the idea that U+005C could be either a reverse >> solidus, a won sign, or a yen sign, depending on the font. This is >> exactly what Unicode is *not* about. Microsoft usually understands >> this. > > Do you know any good way to persuade Microsoft on this point other > than writing to the Unicode list? If you have any personal contact, > it may be a good idea to begin lobbying for our idea via that channel? > As you wrote, MS usually knows what Unicode is or is not about, but in > this particular case, they're certainly off the track possibility out > of the overzeal to preserve 'the compatibility'. This has to be taken > care of as soon as possible to stop the perpetuation of a wrong idea > that U+005C is overloaded with reverse solidus and yen/won sign. I don't have any contacts at Microsoft, but there are several MSers on the list who might be able to make a difference here. Microsoft will have to ask themselves exactly what compatibility is being preserved here. Unicode finally offers a way to get out of that messy overloaded-ASCII situation they got into with the code pages. Converting from duals is never easy -- you always have to guess which of the two was intended -- but continuing to claim that U+005C could be three different characters doesn't help. -Doug Ewell Fullerton, California
