4 ms·

Unicode still does lots of work on language support. The notion that emoji support impedes that is simply not true. And people were already doing emojis with p

by arp242 1y ago

Unicode still does lots of work on language support. The notion that emoji support impedes that is simply not true. And people were already doing emojis with phpBB, MSN Messenger, etc. The alternative to Unicode emojis would not be "no emojis", but "every platform with their own proprietary incompatible implementation". Han Unification has been discussed a million times already. Originally Unicode only had 2 bytes and 65k characters. Maybe it was a mistake, maybe not – I don't speak these languages and those who do often disagree on this as well. However, changing it now would probably introduce be more pain than it solves.

Insanity 1y ago
Going to be nitpicky, while also saying +1 MSN, Skype, etc used emoticons and not emoji, and there wasn’t a standard that I’m aware of.
- myfonj 1y ago
  True. And interestingly, the term "emoticon" was used both for the basic "ASCII" and fancy graphical representation. And while some "ASCII" sequences were present on multiple platforms, the meaning quite unsurprisingly often diverged, just like you implied. See some: [MSN emoticons] vs [Yahoo emoticons] :-* "Secret telling" vs "kiss" 8-| "Nerd" vs "rolling eyes" :| "Disappointed" vs "straight face" [MSN emoticons] https://web.archive.org/web/20031206095746/http://messenger.msn.com:80/Resource/Emoticons.aspx https://web.archive.org/web/20031206095746/http://messenger.... [Yahoo emoticons] https://web.archive.org/web/20080408053458/http://messenger.yahoo.com/emoticons.php https://web.archive.org/web/20080408053458/http://messenger.... N.B. some of them are animated. Animated fonts coming when?
- arp242 1y ago
  I'm reasonably sure they had graphical "emojis" rather than just ASCII "emotions" like :-). They weren't called "emojis" at the time of course, but basically, it's the same thing.
throw7 1y ago
unicode did not magically get rid of proprietary implementations... e.g. apple's "pistol".
- arp242 1y ago
  A single disagreement over something does not make things "proprietary". And it's been what, ten years? Honestly, get over it.
  - eadmund 1y ago
    Apple displays the pistol emoji as a squirt gun. That’s wrong. It has always been wrong. It will always be wrong, because a squirt gun is not a pistol. Time doesn’t erase an error. ‘Get over it’ is the wrong response: ‘Apple, stop being wrong’ is the correct one.
    - arp242 1y ago
      The name in Unicode for U+1F52B is "water pistol". For better or worse, everyone uses a water pistol now and has for years.
      - weinzierl 1y ago
        Not in my book, which is The Unicode Standard, Version 16.0. 1F52B PISTOL = handgun, revolver https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1F300.pdf https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1F300.pdf
- Gigachad 1y ago
  That's not a proprietary implementation, it's a font. Unicode doesn't define how a character renders more than giving a suggestion. It's fully up to the font how it should display.
weinzierl 1y ago
"Unicode still does lots of work on language support." Yes, and that's a good thing. "The notion that emoji support impedes that is simply not true." If it does not, why are there so many unresolved issues and shortcomings lingering around for years. It's not that the issues around Han Unification will go away by ignoring them. There are related issues in western languages, like the umlaut/trema distinction. Pushing these topics, which are core to Unicode's original mission, into OpenType is not a solution. Why do we continue adding pictures of random every day objects, like disco balls, when not even characters common in ordinary books can be represented? Don't you think reallocating resources from emoji work to more serious issues would make sense?
- arp242 1y ago
  These are not "unresolved issues"; these are opinionated views. That's okay, but please, don't fool yourself in to thinking this is somehow objective fact because it's just not. Encoding all human scripts in one encoding was always going to involve some choices, and no matter which choices would have been made some people were going to disagree with it. I have no idea which "characters common in ordinary books" are missing; the explicit goal of Unicode is to encode exactly that sort of thing.
  - weinzierl 1y ago
    Unicode's original mission was to encode all characters needed for written communication in the world. Han Unification fails this mission and that is not a matter of opinion. "I have no idea which "characters common in ordinary books" are missing; the explicit goal of Unicode is to encode exactly that sort of thing." In «Günther a souligné l’ambigüité de son discours.» there is an umlaut and a dieresis. They are different characters with different function. In traditional book printing they used to look differently and quality fonts do still have both. Unfortunately Unicode does not encode both of them.
    - arp242 1y ago
      To claim that these letters "cannot be represented" is just outright bizarre. You literally you did so yourself. Expecting Unicode to contain a codepoint for every single rendering variation is not realistic and the line must be drawn somewhere, with other rendering information provided in another way (e.g. lang=de, font-style, whatnot). You can disagree how Unicode does this (or how other encodings do it, for that matter) but this is just an utterly disingenuous thing to say. I no longer believe you are engaging in good faith. You have either not understood Unicode or you're intentionally misrepresenting it. Good bye.

by arp242 1y ago

Insanity 1y ago

Going to be nitpicky, while also saying +1 MSN, Skype, etc used emoticons and not emoji, and there wasn’t a standard that I’m aware of.

myfonj 1y ago
True. And interestingly, the term "emoticon" was used both for the basic "ASCII" and fancy graphical representation. And while some "ASCII" sequences were present on multiple platforms, the meaning quite unsurprisingly often diverged, just like you implied. See some: [MSN emoticons] vs [Yahoo emoticons] :-* "Secret telling" vs "kiss" 8-| "Nerd" vs "rolling eyes" :| "Disappointed" vs "straight face" [MSN emoticons] https://web.archive.org/web/20031206095746/http://messenger.msn.com:80/Resource/Emoticons.aspx https://web.archive.org/web/20031206095746/http://messenger.... [Yahoo emoticons] https://web.archive.org/web/20080408053458/http://messenger.yahoo.com/emoticons.php https://web.archive.org/web/20080408053458/http://messenger.... N.B. some of them are animated. Animated fonts coming when?
arp242 1y ago
I'm reasonably sure they had graphical "emojis" rather than just ASCII "emotions" like :-). They weren't called "emojis" at the time of course, but basically, it's the same thing.

throw7 1y ago

unicode did not magically get rid of proprietary implementations... e.g. apple's "pistol".

arp242 1y ago
A single disagreement over something does not make things "proprietary". And it's been what, ten years? Honestly, get over it.
- eadmund 1y ago
  Apple displays the pistol emoji as a squirt gun. That’s wrong. It has always been wrong. It will always be wrong, because a squirt gun is not a pistol. Time doesn’t erase an error. ‘Get over it’ is the wrong response: ‘Apple, stop being wrong’ is the correct one.
  - arp242 1y ago
    The name in Unicode for U+1F52B is "water pistol". For better or worse, everyone uses a water pistol now and has for years.
    - weinzierl 1y ago
      Not in my book, which is The Unicode Standard, Version 16.0. 1F52B PISTOL = handgun, revolver https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1F300.pdf https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1F300.pdf
Gigachad 1y ago
That's not a proprietary implementation, it's a font. Unicode doesn't define how a character renders more than giving a suggestion. It's fully up to the font how it should display.

weinzierl 1y ago

"Unicode still does lots of work on language support." Yes, and that's a good thing. "The notion that emoji support impedes that is simply not true." If it does not, why are there so many unresolved issues and shortcomings lingering around for years. It's not that the issues around Han Unification will go away by ignoring them. There are related issues in western languages, like the umlaut/trema distinction. Pushing these topics, which are core to Unicode's original mission, into OpenType is not a solution. Why do we continue adding pictures of random every day objects, like disco balls, when not even characters common in ordinary books can be represented? Don't you think reallocating resources from emoji work to more serious issues would make sense?

arp242 1y ago
These are not "unresolved issues"; these are opinionated views. That's okay, but please, don't fool yourself in to thinking this is somehow objective fact because it's just not. Encoding all human scripts in one encoding was always going to involve some choices, and no matter which choices would have been made some people were going to disagree with it. I have no idea which "characters common in ordinary books" are missing; the explicit goal of Unicode is to encode exactly that sort of thing.
- weinzierl 1y ago
  Unicode's original mission was to encode all characters needed for written communication in the world. Han Unification fails this mission and that is not a matter of opinion. "I have no idea which "characters common in ordinary books" are missing; the explicit goal of Unicode is to encode exactly that sort of thing." In «Günther a souligné l’ambigüité de son discours.» there is an umlaut and a dieresis. They are different characters with different function. In traditional book printing they used to look differently and quality fonts do still have both. Unfortunately Unicode does not encode both of them.
  - arp242 1y ago
    To claim that these letters "cannot be represented" is just outright bizarre. You literally you did so yourself. Expecting Unicode to contain a codepoint for every single rendering variation is not realistic and the line must be drawn somewhere, with other rendering information provided in another way (e.g. lang=de, font-style, whatnot). You can disagree how Unicode does this (or how other encodings do it, for that matter) but this is just an utterly disingenuous thing to say. I no longer believe you are engaging in good faith. You have either not understood Unicode or you're intentionally misrepresenting it. Good bye.