4 ms·
This brings back memories for me. I’m retired now but I helped develop and implemented many of the algorithms for multilingual text and Unicode back in the 80s
by knuckleheadsmif 3y ago
This brings back memories for me. I’m retired now but I helped develop and implemented many of the algorithms for multilingual text and Unicode back in the 80s first at Xerox and later at Apple.
What this article misses is a lot of the complex formatting issues also with text rendering. For example even implementing tabs can be complex (remember that you have different tab types and conflicting constraints like keeping something decimal or left aligned but now having enough space to do that with out overlapping characters.) In languages like German if you have a computed or soft, hyphens the spelling of a word can change. Good paragraph breaking, widow orphan control, page breaking, computed header/footers that can change heights… are also complex issues that have to be dealt with.
Back when I worked on this stuff we also had much slower computers that made things even more difficult so that you could type anywhere in the paragraph and still have responsive and correct output (you can’t delay formatting if the chargers change on context although some formatting can be delayed.)
- apples_oranges 3y agoNice, must have been really painful at times.. btw. I just noticed that when I zoom in Safari I get a pixel wise zoom and then, just a brief moment later, the fonts are re-rendered sharply. And this is I think the fastest laptop they sell maxed out in specs. So still there are optimisations in place to make text appear smoothly.
- thechao 3y agoThere's a group who're trying to get Mayan orthography into Unicode. Mayan has some challenges; the two I like best are: 1. Rendering is in pairs-of-columns, with a "Z" layout; and, 2. Glyphs have a concept of depth, and you must render subglyphs with the correct depth and occlusion to maintain meaning. Mayan also has the same feature as Egyptian Hieroglpyhs (but not the same extent) of multiple glyphs per word/logograph/letter. Here's a 2018 proposal, that covers all of this in more detail: https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2018/18038-mayan.pdf https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2018/18038-mayan.pdf
- qingcharles 3y agoI see this as the canary in the coal mine in case our Alien Overlords™ turn up. At least we'll be able to glyph what they're saying.
- hbs18 3y agoJust what Unicode needs, Mayan orthography.
- bibanez 3y agoIt is ultimately good that unicode is universal, it needs to be if it aims to be used in all domains and languages, not just English!
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoSo it appears that Mayan orthography was strongly influenced by the act of carving the glyphs into stone, and therefore it looks like worldwide orthographies will be strongly influenced (and constrained) by the specifications of Unicode, going forward for decades or centuries.