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Unicode is for representing text, not allowing arbitrary manipulation of it. It isn’t the job of Unicode to encode those relationships. Also, the Turkish `i` st

Unicode is for representing text, not allowing arbitrary manipulation of it. It isn’t the job of Unicode to encode those relationships. Also, the Turkish `i` stuff is just the tip of the iceberg. Should Unicode be able to round-trip `'ß'.upper().lower()`? Keeping the existing capitalization of ß → SS, you need to define a "uppercase S that used to be ß" character. Then there’s the Dutch `ij`, in which both characters are either uppercase or lowercase (`Ij` at the start of a word is incorrect). There’s a ligature in Unicode, but it’s only for compatibility with some legacy keymaps. But is there a point in adding a new version of "S" that a lot of software would not recognize as equivalent to the plain old ASCII "S" (and one might end up far away from a ß due to copy-pasting or stuff), bringing weird bugs and security issues? Should the Dutch throw out all their keyboards just so they get a new key for the special IJ ligature?

msla 4y ago
> Keeping the existing capitalization of ß → SS, you need to define a "uppercase S that used to be ß" character. Even more complicated, there is a capital form of ß: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9F > Until 2017, there was no official capital form of ⟨ß⟩; a capital form was nevertheless frequently used in advertising and government bureaucratic documents.[10]: 211 In June of that year, the Council for German Orthography officially adopted a rule that ⟨ẞ⟩ would be an option for capitalizing ⟨ß⟩ besides the previous capitalization as ⟨SS⟩ (i.e., variants STRASSE and STRAẞE would be accepted as equally valid).[11] [12] Prior to this time, it was recommended to render ⟨ß⟩ as ⟨SS⟩ in allcaps except when there was ambiguity, in which case it should be rendered as ⟨SZ⟩. The common example for such a case was IN MASZEN (in Maßen "in moderate amounts") vs. IN MASSEN (in Massen "in massive amounts"), where the difference between the spelling in ⟨ß⟩ vs. ⟨ss⟩ could actually reverse the conveyed meaning.[citation needed] No character encoding standard can save you from that kind of complexity. You need special-case code on a language-by-language basis.
- Kwpolska 4y ago
  The capital ẞ is a recent invention, it’s in Unicode since 2008. While it would solve the issue, most programming languages and other tools will convert it to SS (though things are changing; Gboard now offers an actual uppercase ẞ instead of the SS it had some years ago). I don’t know what actual humans think, but I suppose the no-capital-ß-exists position is ingrained in many German speakers.
  - msla 4y ago
    I wasn't saying it was a solution, I was saying it was a further complication. Also, Unicode didn't invent it. Germans invented it.

msla 4y ago

> Keeping the existing capitalization of ß → SS, you need to define a "uppercase S that used to be ß" character. Even more complicated, there is a capital form of ß: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9F > Until 2017, there was no official capital form of ⟨ß⟩; a capital form was nevertheless frequently used in advertising and government bureaucratic documents.[10]: 211 In June of that year, the Council for German Orthography officially adopted a rule that ⟨ẞ⟩ would be an option for capitalizing ⟨ß⟩ besides the previous capitalization as ⟨SS⟩ (i.e., variants STRASSE and STRAẞE would be accepted as equally valid).[11] [12] Prior to this time, it was recommended to render ⟨ß⟩ as ⟨SS⟩ in allcaps except when there was ambiguity, in which case it should be rendered as ⟨SZ⟩. The common example for such a case was IN MASZEN (in Maßen "in moderate amounts") vs. IN MASSEN (in Massen "in massive amounts"), where the difference between the spelling in ⟨ß⟩ vs. ⟨ss⟩ could actually reverse the conveyed meaning.[citation needed] No character encoding standard can save you from that kind of complexity. You need special-case code on a language-by-language basis.

Kwpolska 4y ago
The capital ẞ is a recent invention, it’s in Unicode since 2008. While it would solve the issue, most programming languages and other tools will convert it to SS (though things are changing; Gboard now offers an actual uppercase ẞ instead of the SS it had some years ago). I don’t know what actual humans think, but I suppose the no-capital-ß-exists position is ingrained in many German speakers.
- msla 4y ago
  I wasn't saying it was a solution, I was saying it was a further complication. Also, Unicode didn't invent it. Germans invented it.