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"many visually identical code points" The emoji code points can be represented differently on different systems given their meaning. So it makes sense to have

"many visually identical code points" The emoji code points can be represented differently on different systems given their meaning. So it makes sense to have different emojis for different 'meanings'. The 'moon' switch here does no mean 'moon' - it means 'standby' or whatever. It may look noticeably different on different systems. Think from a design perspective: you have 5 emojis to represent 'clouds, sky, earth' etc. - and the a different set of 5 to represent 'on, off, sleep, shutdown'. Those icons will be markedly different in terms of representation, groupings, colour coding, underlying functionality if they are integrated into an experience in any meaningful way. Text your car with the 'shutdown' symbol to tell it to shut down. Your bot texts your friend with a moon symbol to tell him you're asleep. Or whatever.

xg15 10y ago
But that doesn't explain the inconsistency in the current case. So if a system wants to render "on" differently than "straight vertical line", that's possible. However, if "off" should be rendered differently than "circle", that's not possible. (Or only possible with out-of-band information or modifier characters which would still have to be defined)
- msbarnett 10y ago
  Yeah. It's a mess. If you want to write a document in Japanese that talks about a Chinese character which is written differently than its Japanese version, you can, or can't, achieve this in Unicode, depending on the character, its history, and the mood of the consortium the day it was assigned. The reality is that Unicode is governed by people, some of those people are grumpy reductionists who push for a minimum of symbols and a maximum of meaning-overloads, and others are more liberal and tend to advocate the opposite, and the result is a compromise, and is in areas very messy.
- PeterisP 10y ago
  Do note that they did not include a generic "off" symbol, they included the IEEE 1621 off symbol - which must be rendered as a circle; while on the other hand the IEEE 1621 on symbol must be rendered in a manner that is often different from just "straight vertical line" in particular regarding the corners of that line.

xg15 10y ago

But that doesn't explain the inconsistency in the current case. So if a system wants to render "on" differently than "straight vertical line", that's possible. However, if "off" should be rendered differently than "circle", that's not possible. (Or only possible with out-of-band information or modifier characters which would still have to be defined)

msbarnett 10y ago
Yeah. It's a mess. If you want to write a document in Japanese that talks about a Chinese character which is written differently than its Japanese version, you can, or can't, achieve this in Unicode, depending on the character, its history, and the mood of the consortium the day it was assigned. The reality is that Unicode is governed by people, some of those people are grumpy reductionists who push for a minimum of symbols and a maximum of meaning-overloads, and others are more liberal and tend to advocate the opposite, and the result is a compromise, and is in areas very messy.
PeterisP 10y ago
Do note that they did not include a generic "off" symbol, they included the IEEE 1621 off symbol - which must be rendered as a circle; while on the other hand the IEEE 1621 on symbol must be rendered in a manner that is often different from just "straight vertical line" in particular regarding the corners of that line.