3 ms·

Should Unicode contain sub/superscript variants of Hangul or Devanagari or letters from hundreds other non-latin-alphabae languages? Nope, you'd use markers si

by cygx 5y ago

Should Unicode contain sub/superscript variants of Hangul or Devanagari or letters from hundreds other non-latin-alphabae languages? Nope, you'd use markers similar to U+200E (LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK) and U+200F (RIGHT-TO-LEFT MARK) that already exist to indicate text direction (which is also a typesetting property).

lifthrasiir 5y ago
They are relevant because Unicode had to define the bidirectional rendering and not every rendering can be automatically inferred from logical (abstract) characters. Unicode has no reason to define the general text rendering including subscripts and superscripts, so there is no reason for Unicode to define control characters for them.
- cygx 5y ago
  Unicode had to define the bidirectional rendering Why? They could have left this for a higher layer to handle.
  - lifthrasiir 5y ago
    Unicode defines characters, their semantics and (very flexible) guidelines for rendering them. Unlike, say, bold, italic or super/subscripts, bidirectionality is an intrinsic property of those characters and can't be easily refactored.
    - cygx 5y ago
      Should a universal text encoding provide a way to encode the names of mathematical and physical quantities? In my opinion, yes. If it can't, it's not fit for purpose, no matter what is or is not an intrinsic property of some characters...
    - thaumasiotes 5y ago
      > Unicode defines characters, their semantics Unicode specifically states that it doesn't define the semantics of characters. That would seriously interfere with its purpose of defining characters. There are some notable exceptions, and they are acknowledged to be mistakes.
      - lifthrasiir 5y ago
        > Unicode specifically states that it doesn't define the semantics of characters. The Unicode Standard explicitly says otherwise: > Characters have well-defined semantics. These semantics are defined by explicitly assigned character properties, rather than implied through the character name or the position of a character in the code tables (see Section 3.5, Properties). [1] > The Unicode Standard associates a rich set of semantics with characters and, in some instances, with code points. The support of character semantics is required for conformance; see Section 3.2, Conformance Requirements. [2] To be fair, it refers to "character" semantics which is more or less abstracted by character properties. It is not like that, for example, △ U+25B2 WHITE UP-POINTING TRIANGLE UNICODE CHARACTER can only ever be used for denoting triangles. But it has defined semantics in the way that the character has properties expected for such symbols. [1] https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode14.0.0/ch02.pdf#page=11 https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode14.0.0/ch02.pdf#page... [2] https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode14.0.0/ch04.pdf#page=2 https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode14.0.0/ch04.pdf#page...

by cygx 5y ago

lifthrasiir 5y ago

They are relevant because Unicode had to define the bidirectional rendering and not every rendering can be automatically inferred from logical (abstract) characters. Unicode has no reason to define the general text rendering including subscripts and superscripts, so there is no reason for Unicode to define control characters for them.

cygx 5y ago
Unicode had to define the bidirectional rendering Why? They could have left this for a higher layer to handle.
- lifthrasiir 5y ago
  Unicode defines characters, their semantics and (very flexible) guidelines for rendering them. Unlike, say, bold, italic or super/subscripts, bidirectionality is an intrinsic property of those characters and can't be easily refactored.
  - cygx 5y ago
    Should a universal text encoding provide a way to encode the names of mathematical and physical quantities? In my opinion, yes. If it can't, it's not fit for purpose, no matter what is or is not an intrinsic property of some characters...
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    > Unicode defines characters, their semantics Unicode specifically states that it doesn't define the semantics of characters. That would seriously interfere with its purpose of defining characters. There are some notable exceptions, and they are acknowledged to be mistakes.
    - lifthrasiir 5y ago
      > Unicode specifically states that it doesn't define the semantics of characters. The Unicode Standard explicitly says otherwise: > Characters have well-defined semantics. These semantics are defined by explicitly assigned character properties, rather than implied through the character name or the position of a character in the code tables (see Section 3.5, Properties). [1] > The Unicode Standard associates a rich set of semantics with characters and, in some instances, with code points. The support of character semantics is required for conformance; see Section 3.2, Conformance Requirements. [2] To be fair, it refers to "character" semantics which is more or less abstracted by character properties. It is not like that, for example, △ U+25B2 WHITE UP-POINTING TRIANGLE UNICODE CHARACTER can only ever be used for denoting triangles. But it has defined semantics in the way that the character has properties expected for such symbols. [1] https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode14.0.0/ch02.pdf#page=11 https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode14.0.0/ch02.pdf#page... [2] https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode14.0.0/ch04.pdf#page=2 https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode14.0.0/ch04.pdf#page...