I would say that Unicode is complex, not that it is a mess. As Einstein (or somebody) said, Everything Should Be Made as Simple as Possible, But Not Simpler.

I would say that Unicode is complex, not that it is a mess. As Einstein (or somebody) said, Everything Should Be Made as Simple as Possible, But Not Simpler. There are admittedly a few oddities in Unicode (like the treatment of some characters composed of others in Devanagari, IIRC), but they are blessedly rare. What's complicated is writing systems. Have a look at the Burmese script, or contextual variants in Arabic script, and you'll begin to understand why Unicode is complicated.