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I would draw the line like this. Text is anything you can represent using Unicode. Source code is text. Emoji are text. Some simple math expressions are text,

by mantap 6y ago

I would draw the line like this. Text is anything you can represent using Unicode. Source code is text. Emoji are text. Some simple math expressions are text, but more complicated ones involving specialist layout rules are not. Architecture plans, no way.

eat_veggies 6y ago
That's a reasonable but exactly backwards way of looking at it. Indeed, Unicode captures a wide range of what we consider text, but text is not Unicode. There are languages with symbols that Unicode can't represent but they are still text -- to claim otherwise is to erase them. Something closer to a definition of text is parts of their criteria for encoding symbols [1] but even that is imperfect. [1] https://www.unicode.org/pending/symbol-guidelines.html https://www.unicode.org/pending/symbol-guidelines.html
duckerude 6y ago
Unicode is not quite the right place for the line, I think. Cypro-Minoan is text (but not currently part of unicode). ASCII art is not text. Linearity is part of it. Source code and emoji and simple math expressions can be seen as a linear stream of "characters" (defined loosely), even on a fundamental level. An architectural plan could be transliterated into a linear form, but that would be a transformation. Of course then you need to explain why audio doesn't count as text. Discreteness? Ease of faithful reproduction?
eimrine 6y ago
Unicode answer is not so great because you can express compiled program in Unicode which obvious is non-text. Math expressions are always text because they always fit TeX or LaTeX. Architecture is a beautiful example which provokes thinking. From first view it is a non-text, but an architect Antoni Gaudí has developed an attitude with hanging models which made his architecture plans to share some abilities of text even not being written. You may tell me I am crazy but his hanging models is a WYSIWYG model of something from real world so I consider it a text despite it could not be simply copied. IDK maybe a modern architect software shares that attitude, for make these models be copied easy. So my opinion is that architecture plan may be text at least from a structure point of view.

by mantap 6y ago

eat_veggies 6y ago

That's a reasonable but exactly backwards way of looking at it. Indeed, Unicode captures a wide range of what we consider text, but text is not Unicode. There are languages with symbols that Unicode can't represent but they are still text -- to claim otherwise is to erase them. Something closer to a definition of text is parts of their criteria for encoding symbols [1] but even that is imperfect. [1] https://www.unicode.org/pending/symbol-guidelines.html https://www.unicode.org/pending/symbol-guidelines.html

duckerude 6y ago

Unicode is not quite the right place for the line, I think. Cypro-Minoan is text (but not currently part of unicode). ASCII art is not text. Linearity is part of it. Source code and emoji and simple math expressions can be seen as a linear stream of "characters" (defined loosely), even on a fundamental level. An architectural plan could be transliterated into a linear form, but that would be a transformation. Of course then you need to explain why audio doesn't count as text. Discreteness? Ease of faithful reproduction?

eimrine 6y ago

Unicode answer is not so great because you can express compiled program in Unicode which obvious is non-text. Math expressions are always text because they always fit TeX or LaTeX. Architecture is a beautiful example which provokes thinking. From first view it is a non-text, but an architect Antoni Gaudí has developed an attitude with hanging models which made his architecture plans to share some abilities of text even not being written. You may tell me I am crazy but his hanging models is a WYSIWYG model of something from real world so I consider it a text despite it could not be simply copied. IDK maybe a modern architect software shares that attitude, for make these models be copied easy. So my opinion is that architecture plan may be text at least from a structure point of view.