Unicode & IETF

[Shawn Steele]

> Shawn, with all due respect, Unicode and IETF are working on two different issues, have two different problem statement, and have two different goals. This discussion is not the result of lack of cooperation. It is the result of cooperation.

That might be my concern.

> The temperature of the discussion might be unfortunate and could be at a level to make the discussion more productive.

That is certainly true :)

> That the two standard organizations do reach different results when applying whatever algorithms they use when calculating what the best solution is to reach whatever goal is to be reached is for me completely understood.

As an implementer that's really problematic. I'd like Unicode to behave consistently.  If there's an environment/context that Unicode 'doesn't work for', then I'd like a well-designed set of rules that considers both sides and figures out how to make those rules (which is what I think the IETF is attempting).  Different sets of rules for every application or contexts quickly become unwieldy.

It doesn't help users if one application has characters that are typed a certain way for certain languages or whatever, and then another application says "I don't understand the word you typed, spell it differently".  I can't spell it differently, my keyboard only let me type it one way.

-Shawn