5 ms·

Unicode had to define the bidirectional rendering Why? They could have left this for a higher layer to handle.

by cygx 5y ago

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...

Unicode had to define the bidirectional rendering Why? They could have left this for a higher layer to handle.

by cygx 5y ago

Unicode had to define the bidirectional rendering Why? They could have left this for a higher layer to handle.

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...