Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Unicode character “ꙮ” (U+A66E) is being updated

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 254 posts

Re: Unicode character “ꙮ” (U+A66E) is being updated

#71

Post by [deleted] »

bityard wrote: post #51
colejohnson66 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unicode's mission is to make every document "roundtrip-able". Even if a character is only used once, it should be possible to save a plaintext version of the containing document without losing any information. Roughly, I should be able to put a transcription of that one translation from the 1400s on Wikisource without using images. You may disagree with me, and that's fine, but it doesn't change Unicode's mission. Be…

Today, I wrote a document by hand containing a new symbol that only looks like genitalia if you squint really hard. Where do I apply to have it included in unicode so that it can be digitized properly?

[deleted]

Re: Unicode character “ꙮ” (U+A66E) is being updated

#72

Post by wheybags »

This kind of stupid thing is my problem with Unicode. We have all this baggage for stuff that nobody uses, and we need to deal with it forever. The worst for me is the way there is no possible way to encode a grapheme cluster as a constant size, so using Unicode make it impossible to have simple character access like an old style c string, no matter how big you make your char, even though it's totally possible with damn near every language that people actually use.

So then we all end up paying this massive complexity tax everywhere to pay for support for some Mongolian script that died out 200 years ago (or multi codepoint encodings of simple things like é - just why, it was so avoidable).

Re: Unicode character “ꙮ” (U+A66E) is being updated

#73

Post by Pinus »

koboll wrote: post #30
etamponi wrote: post #4

By the same reasoning, the 7-eyed O has now been used more than once, so it deserves a glyph! So the right way to do this is to introduce a new character for the correct glyph, and also leave the current one (perhaps changing the title). Otherwise these tweets won't make when read by someone that updated to Unicode 15.0

Honestly it probably deserves the Pluto treatment: decertification as a character. One historical use in the 1400s doesn't merit a character and never did.

Isn’t there an entire Unicode block for the symbols on the Phaistos disc? Yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaistos_Disc_(Unicode_block) . I suppose those occur in quite a few documents about the disc, even though the disc itself is the only known document written in those symbols.

Re: Unicode character “ꙮ” (U+A66E) is being updated

#74

Post by fluoridation »

lucumo wrote: post #67
bityard wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today, I wrote a document by hand containing a new symbol that only looks like genitalia if you squint really hard. Where do I apply to have it included in unicode so that it can be digitized properly?

Rule-lawyering wise-asses try to mess with many policies. It's rarely a sensible indictment of a policy, nor is it very effective. Anyone dealing with such people just ignores them.

What's the criterion that includes the document in the tweet, but excludes the document referenced by the GP?

Re: Unicode character “ꙮ” (U+A66E) is being updated

#75

Post by JohnFen »

tempodox wrote: post #21
jerf wrote: post #11

When my kids were young, I accidentally flubbed the pronunciation of "Santa Claus" once and said something that sounded a lot like "Centiclops", which I decided to roll with. Centiclops is a lot like a cyclops with one eye, except the as a reading of the roots clearly indicates, this is a creature with 100 eyes. Today I learn that Centiclops effectively has a Unicode character. As Centiclops' representative in the wo…

“Santa Clause” would translate to “holy clause”. There might be such a thing but I think you meant Santa Claus :)

I thought "santa" meant "saint"?

Re: Unicode character “ꙮ” (U+A66E) is being updated

#76

Post by martin_a »

etamponi wrote: post #4

By the same reasoning, the 7-eyed O has now been used more than once, so it deserves a glyph! So the right way to do this is to introduce a new character for the correct glyph, and also leave the current one (perhaps changing the title). Otherwise these tweets won't make when read by someone that updated to Unicode 15.0

Uff.

I'm not sure we have space for another glyph in Unicode. Looks pretty packed in here...

Re: Unicode character “ꙮ” (U+A66E) is being updated

#77

Post by 1-6 »

Stamp01 wrote: post #35

I don't understand why this character needs to exist given that, at least according to the author, it has only been seen once in the wild, and it's semantically identical to another more widely used character. I'm glad I'm not responsible for unicode. Clearly I have the wrong mindset for it.

I agree with your mindset. It’s time for a unicode replacement.

Re: Unicode character “ꙮ” (U+A66E) is being updated

#78

Post by JohnFen »

wheybags wrote: post #72

This kind of stupid thing is my problem with Unicode. We have all this baggage for stuff that nobody uses , and we need to deal with it forever. The worst for me is the way there is no possible way to encode a grapheme cluster as a constant size, so using Unicode make it impossible to have simple character access like an old style c string, no matter how big you make your char, even though it's totally possible with…

I hear you. I loathe working with Unicode for this exact reason. It's a bit of a nightmare due to its complexity.

That said, what it's trying to do is enormously complex.

Re: Unicode character “ꙮ” (U+A66E) is being updated

#79

Post by bhaney »

reaperducer wrote: post #63
koboll wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly it probably deserves the Pluto treatment: decertification as a character. One historical use in the 1400s doesn't merit a character and never did.

One historical use in the 1400s doesn't merit a character and never did One known and surviving use. It is possible that it exists in other places, since the vast majority of the planet's written work has not been digitized. It may also have been used other places that have not survived. Just because it's not important to you does not mean it is not important. The fact that is survived for 600 years makes it interest…

> It is infinitely unlikely that anything you do, write, or say will last that long

Ouch

Post reply on HN