Re: [tlug] japanese encoding question

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

>>>>> "David" == David Oftedal <david@example.com> writes:

    >> Oh, with Plane 14 tags?  Not likely, CSS doesn't know anything
    >> about Plane 14 tags last I heard.

    >> Furthermore, suppose I'm not using tags (eg, ReStructuredText
    >> in Zope)?  Not to mention that the whole point of CSS (as
    >> opposed to embedding fonts in your markup) is so that
    >> downstream can use a stylesheet that they like, which will not
    >> necessarily allow yours to be active.

    >> I'm sorry, it's just not that easy.

    David> It certainly isn't, because you didn't understand what I
    David> said at all.

Et tu, brute.  I understood exactly what you said.  Been there, done
that, and do not want to go back.

    David> With CSS tags, not with Plane 14 tags. Font settings are of
    David> course markup, and not related to text encoding.

Exactly.  The problem here is not a markup issue, it's an issue of
(visual, ie, glyph) text encoding.  The difference between a Japanese
character and a Chinese character that it is unified with is not a
difference at the level of character---I think Unihan got that right.
But it is not a matter of choice of font, either, any more than
forcing ASCII into a 7-segment format is "choice of font"---and that's
why Plane 14 tags are a necessary evil.

My main point, though, is that content management systems are moving
away from markup as they move toward sanity (it's a cyclical thing, as
fascist authors find ways to put it back in), and therefore if you are
going to mark languages, you have to do it in the text encoding, which
is why Plane 14 tags were invented.  Even if you use a system which
requires authors to embed markup, you still can't guarantee you'll get
the right fonts through CSS, because most systems allow the user to
override your stylesheet (and with good reason, as some users are
blind or nearly so, etc).


-- 
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