Markus Scherer wrote at 12:45 PM on Thursday, March 13, 2003: >It has been suggested many times to build a database (list, document, >XML, ...) where each >designated/assigned code point and each character gets its "story": >Comments on the glyphs, from >what codepage it was inherited, usage comments and examples, alternate >names, etc. ... >And further yet, for new proposals, the proposed characters should be >entered into the database and >tracked there with their intermediate and eventual status - rejected; >representable by <a b c>; >assigned at U+uvwxy. Proposed properties could be tracked, too. > >Frank da Cruz wrote: > > ISO and the Unicode Consortium are to be commended for documenting > > character sets not only by showing a picture of each character, but also > > giving it a name. > > > > The next step is to write a little story about each character: history, > > etymology, applications, specs, anecdotes, controversies, ... For some > > characters, this could be a book in itself.
Interestingly enough, when we go online soon, the Initiative for Cuneiform Encoding will be keeping track of just such information for each of the 900+ signs discussed for the Sumero-Akkadian Unicode proposal. We have experimented with several client-side technologies (XML/XSLT, Java) but have, for the time being, decided to go with HTML pre-generated from an XML database. (The client side technologies mentioned are either just not ready for prime time yet or are too hardware & software demanding for use by many of our cuneiformists.) When our proposal is finalized, perhaps some of this information will be useful for the purposes suggested. Respectfully, Dean A. Snyder Scholarly Technology Specialist Center For Scholarly Resources, Sheridan Libraries Garrett Room, MSE Library, 3400 N. Charles St. The Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, Maryland, USA 21218 office: 410 516-6850 mobile: 410 245-7168 fax: 410-516-6229 Manager, Digital Hammurabi Project: www.jhu.edu/digitalhammurabi Manager, Initiative for Cuneiform Encoding: www.jhu.edu/ice
