ISWA 2010 data change for proposed Unicode string

Fri Apr 29 18:04:15 UTC 2011

On 29/04/2011 11:29 AM, Steve Slevinski wrote:
> Hi Jonathan and list,
>
> I am making a small change that will only affect programmers and back 
> end data.
>
> We are almost off the bleeding edge.  The Unicode proposal requires a 
> change to the SignPuddle data.  After this change, I do not plan any 
> additional changes.  A future and final conversion may be needed for a 
> Unicode compromise agreement.  No changes are planned for the ISWA 
> 2010 itself.
>
> I will be updating my documents, code libraries, and test data over 
> the next few days.
>
> The primary change moves the fill and rotation codepoints 14 ahead 
> into different code chart rows.  This leaves 14 spaces for new root 
> symbols to be added in future proposals.  Fill codepoints will start 
> at U+1DA9A and Rotation codepoints will start at U+IDAA0.  If a 
> Unicode string for a symbol is 3 codepoints long, the 1st character 
> remains the same, but the 2nd and 3rd will change.   Each will advance 
> 14 codepoints.
>
> Michael Everson made this change in the Unicode proposal.  It's a good 
> change, so I'm including it in the SignPuddle online data conversion.
This sounds like a good improvement to me too.
>
> He is writing a new draft that affects the Unicode world but not the 
> SignWriting world.  All hand root symbols will appear using the first 
> (empty) palm facing for Unicode code charts.  The new draft isn't 
> ready yet, but Michael's previous draft is online.
> http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n4015.pdf
>
> A secondary change in the proposal is regarding character count, but 
> will not affect the proposed symbol strings that I use.  Instead of 
> proposing 674 new codepoints, we will be proposing 672.  This 
> compromise will leave holes in the code charts for fill-1 and 
> rotation-1.  Unicode strings for symbols will assume fill-1 if a 
> symbol string does not include a fill characters, and assume 
> rotation-1 if a symbol string does not include a rotation character.  
> A proposed symbol string will be 1, 2, or 3 characters long.  If 
> approved by the Unicode committees, we will achieve 99.7% of the goal 
> and take a huge step forward in standardization.
Why are they proposing to remove fill-1 and rotation-1 codepoints?  Are 
they assuming that these fills and rotations are used more often and 
could therefore save on the length of a document by having symbol of 1 
and 2 characters long?  Or what exactly is their motivation?
>
> I will not be removing fill-1 and rotation-1 from the test data.  I 
> consider removal of the fill-1 and rotation-1 as Unicode 
> normalization.  An easy process can search for and deletes these 2 
> characters wherever they exist.  The undo process is more complicated.
>
> The removal of the fill-1 character breaks sorting and complicates 
> searching.  The easy way to fix sorting is to use the fill-1 character 
> rather than an empty slot.  This solution works for any environment, 
> such as mobile, desktop, web browser, and server.
>
> If the first proposal is successful, I plan to champion a second 
> proposal to add Fill-1 and Rotation-1 as control characters that 
> complete the set.   These characters are useful for programmers.  
> Fill-1 and Rotation-1 characters facilitate easier, reusable generic 
> code.  They eliminate the need to repeatedly test for and handle 
> exceptions.
So if the first proposal goes through we would have

Fill-2 U+1DA9A
Fill-3 U+1DA9C
Fill-4 U+1DA9D
Fill-5 U+1DA9E
Fill-6 U+1DA9F

Rotation-2  U+IDAA0
Rotation-3  U+IDAA1
Rotation-4  U+IDAA2
Rotation-5 U+IDAA3
Rotation-6  U+IDAA4
Rotation-7  U+IDAA5
Rotation-8  U+IDAA6
Rotation-9 U+IDAA7
Rotation-10  U+IDAA8
Rotation-11  U+IDAA9
Rotation-12  U+IDAAA
Rotation-13  U+IDAAB
Rotation-14  U+IDAAC
Rotation-15 U+IDAAD
Rotation-16  U+IDAAE

Then with the second proposal they would change to this readding the 
Fill1 and Rotation-1 or where did you intend on re-inserting Fill-1 and 
Rotation-1?

Fill-1 U+1DA9A
Fill-2 U+1DA9B
Fill-3 U+1DA9C
Fill-4 U+1DA9D
Fill-5 U+1DA9E
Fill-6 U+1DA9F

Rotation-1  U+IDAA0
Rotation-2  U+IDAA1
Rotation-3  U+IDAA2
Rotation-4  U+IDAA3
Rotation-5 U+IDAA4
Rotation-6  U+IDAA5
Rotation-7  U+IDAA6
Rotation-8  U+IDAA7
Rotation-9 U+IDAA8
Rotation-10  U+IDAA9
Rotation-11  U+IDAAA
Rotation-12  U+IDAAB
Rotation-13  U+IDAAC
Rotation-14  U+IDAAD
Rotation-15 U+IDAAE
Rotation-16  U+IDAAF

Not only does the first proposal make it hard sort the entries but it 
will also be harder to parse because the symbol with sometimes be 1 
character long, sometimes 2 and sometimes 3.  So extra checking has do 
be done to verify if the next character is the start of a new symbol or 
a fill and or rotation modifier.

Regards,
     Jonathan
>

> Regards,
> -Steve
>
>
>
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