On 11/15/2011 8:22 AM, Larson, Timothy E. wrote:
I certainly can appreciate the argument for encoding only textual characters
that already have demonstrated use cases. You can't include every imaginable
thing, so you have to draw a line somewhere.
On the other hand, it appears to me that by accident of popularity, you may create the
opportunity to get your favorite symbol encoded. It seems a bit backwards that a
"random" character could get encoded by virtue of being in the right place at
the right time (included in a popular pi font, or smartphone symbol set), but a
recognized cultural symbol (which if it were included, would definitely see use, as font
designers add it) does not.
You've captured this issue very succinctly in your summary.
However, Unicode does include quite a few symbols that are not from
"popular pi fonts or smartphone symbol sets".
These were added, because someone took the time to locate evidence that
these symbols do occur in text somewhere in a manner that satisfies the
requirements for standardizing that symbol as a character.
If a symbol doesn't exist even in "unpopular" pi fonts, or, when used
appears solely as graphical element, then encoding it as character isn't
all that useful - even if the symbol itself is venerable.
As I indicated in my reply to you, some of the symbols in your list can
be found in text. And I think I know where I could lay my hands on
examples for that. For the others, you should know where you've
encountered them.
So, the question remains: are these used in text and are you up to the
challenge to prove it?
A./
