Re: Unicode/10646 History (was Re: [idn] An ignorant question about TC<-> SC)

[Eric Brunner-Williams in Portland Maine <brunner@nic-naa.net>]

Doug,

Thus far, we (the IETF) haven't done bidi and Arabic. At some point Ken was
writing to the relative importance of Pharonic Egyptian -- a feature of the
Unicode work. Unfortunately, whatever value that feature has, and any of a
similar nature, and the (incomensurably greater) value of the work on Arabic
and bidi, we have an unsolved problem.

The point being made in the note you replied to is that a) epigraphic pseudo
scholarship (I confess to being biased by all the Runic and Ogham "writings"
miraculously found in the Americas) and classical scholarship are not works
directed at delivery of mass-literacy or mass-access to information, and b)
that speculation that a product is useful in a specific application (theirs,
in ours), is problematic. Time and energy spent on a) and not spent on b) is
misplaced, or expended with some risk.

Don't apologize for "butting in", we're done anyway. Ken's conceeded that
the POSIX vendors couldn't tell a Unicode from a Ukulele, and I've conceeded
that a Maine paper mill was involved in Unicode, so it wasn't just a printer
consortia, and we're both dimly aware that some scripts aren't yet encoded.

I'll let Ken induct you into the UTC. I've forgotten the handshake.

Eric