At 14:13 -0500 2004-01-18, Dean Snyder wrote:
It took Devanagiri to show me the NATURE of the technical problem posed by a dynamic encoding for cuneiform; it took Mongolian to show me that the problem HAS ALREADY BEEN SOLVED in Unicode.
No greater hames have we ever made than encoding Mongolian without a proper implementation model. But go ahead, Dean, engage in yet another flight of fancy.
As in Devanagiri, dynamic cuneiform must be capable of mapping a sequence of encoded characters to a single unencoded glyph; but unlike Devanagiri, which glyph to select for a given character sequence in cuneiform is not predictable.
We are not going to use a "dynamic" model to encode Cuneiform. This has been decided.
Variation selectors are not the joyous answer to Dean's prayers. Variation selectors are, in fact, a vexatious and nasty form of pseudo-coding which pretty much sucks, except maybe for mathematicians.
[Much overhopeful blather deleted]
There are, of course, differences in detail between the Mongolian model and a proposed dynamic cuneiform model, but the basic architectural concept would be the same for both.
Not in a month of leap years.
Thus there is NO technical reason in Unicode for jettisoning a dynamic model for cuneiform. And this is exactly the kind of technical information I have been looking for all along on these email lists.
There is every technical reason for refusing a "dynamic" model for Unicode. It is a bad idea. This has been explained, politely and not so politely, to Dean, who persists in annoying everyone by waving his hands and ignoring the opinions both of authors of the Unicode Standard and of other cuneiformists.
The "dynamic" is inferior to the "static" model we have chosen. We chose the model years ago, for good reason, not least the ease of timely and simple font provision. The static model we have chosen is good enough for 70,000 Han characters, and the dynamic model is not good enough for any of them. The same shall apply for Cuneiform.
[More blather deleted]
Dean wanted to use control characters, then ligators, and now variation selectors in order to glue characters together to make other characters. From recent discussion on the Cuneiform list:
If I use the Devanagari model and encode this cuneiform sequence
CUNEIFORM SIGN LU2 + LIGATOR + CUNEIFORM SIGN LU2
which ligature will you render it with? The crossed or opposed ligature?
To represent the crossed ligature we use U+12212 CUNEIFORM SIGN LU2 CROSSING LU2.
To represent the opposed ligature we use U+12214 CUNEIFORM SIGN LU2 OPPOSING LU2.
No gluing. No splicing. No alternate format characters. No ligator characters. And no variation selectors.
Respectfully,
Dean A. Snyder
Dean. Perhaps you should consider revising your signature. Because your continued harping on this matter is not in the least bit "respectful". Rather, you are endeavouring, fruitlessly, to upset and overturn the consensus which we have for encoding Cuneiform, ignoring the fact that whenever you ask us to take time to respond to you, you are really asking us to waste our time defending good work against bad. The experts have given their opinions, for a month now since you re-introduced the "modifier" idea on 2003-12-17. If you want to be "respectful" you will accept those opinions.
Because we are not going to use a "dynamic" model to encode Cuneiform.
Now have DONE. -- Michael Everson * * Everson Typography * * http://www.evertype.com
