Re: Tech: Unicode (was...)

Mark P. Line scripsit:

> > I already noticed that there are many successive
> > versions of Unicode (which is quite understandable),
> > including complements but also changes, so clearly
> > there is not one Unicode but many different versions
> > of Unicode, even if the most usual codes are probably
> > not affected from one version to the next one. So
> > Unicode is Unicode only insofar you and me share the
> > same version.
>
> As you say, these are *successive* versions of the Unicode standard, not
> *alternate* versions (that's one of the things that makes it a standard).
> There's no reason why you and I wouldn't be sharing the same version of
> Unicode: the current one. It's like phone books: always use the most
> recent one you can get.
To stomp this meme before it gets out of control:

Since the publication of Unicode 2.0 in 1996, there have been NO
changes in the assignment of characters to particular codes or in
the identity of characters, and the Unicode and ISO committees are
firmly committed to the policy that there will be no changes in
future for any reasons whatsoever.

On occasion, the descriptions or properties of characters have
been changed to take advantage of better knowledge (particularly
about obscure scripts) or to correct small errors (the ESTIMATED
SYMBOL is not a letter even though it looks just like an "e").
But in no case has this extended to removing a character, or
changing the code assigned to a character.

Unicode 2.0 texts are perfectly interpretable under the current
(4.0.1) standard.  Indeed, the great bulk of Unicode 1.1 texts
are also; the changes made at that time affected only Korean,
at a time when little if any Korean text was available in Unicode,
and Japanese katakana with circles drawn around them.  Hardly
a huge problem.

--
John Cowan                              jcowan@reutershealth.com
http://www.reutershealth.com            http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Humpty Dump Dublin squeaks through his norse
                Humpty Dump Dublin hath a horrible vorse
But for all his kinks English / And his irismanx brogues
                Humpty Dump Dublin's grandada of all rogues.  --Cousin James

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