[Fwd]: Response to Mark's message]

Jon Hanna jon at spin.ie
Fri Apr 11 12:34:55 CEST 2003


> At 12:26 03/04/10 +0100, Jon Hanna wrote:
>
> >Currently the only method for deducing scripts is either
> heuristically (look
> >at the characters used and then deduce that the script used is whatever
> >script uses those characters)
>
> This is not heuristic. This is highly deterministic. Things can
> go wrong only for cases where there is no actual text (e.g. only
> numbers or only punctuation). There is absolutely nothing wrong
> with infering the script this way.

Not when you also have to guess the encoding. Of course those who inform us
of the script are unlikely to neglect to inform us of the encoding...

Even if it is entirely deterministic, there is still a practical difference
between a HEAD and a GET; a point I imagine has plenty of analogies outside
of the web.

> >or guessing from the language as in the second
> >point above. While we all agree that this is not ideal, we have
> to recognise
> >that software doing so will continue to exist for some time
> after a better
> >solution is available.
>
> I highly doubt that active markup is a better solution for
> indicating the script than deduction from the actual
> characters. Looking at the current state of language markup
> on the Web, in most cases, such markup is missing, and in
> some cases, it is wrong. Automatic deduction from the
> actual characters is the most accurate thing to do.
> There is no 'better solution'.

Well anything that argues against the necessity of active markup for scripts
re-enforces my position that script markup shouldn't be merged into language
markup, so I'm not going to argue.



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