more Unicod

[Rick_McGowan@xxxxxxxx]

The Unicode technical committee members are aware that the NY Times
article trivializes the _problems_ inherent in trying to build such a code.  The
important part of the article, however is not the problems but the PROGRESS
that Unicode is making:

> [the consortium's] 12 members include many top computer companies
> that are often fierce rivals, like I.B.M., Apple Computer, Microsoft, Sun
> Microsystems and Xerox.

Unfortunately I haven't time right now to get into a discussion of why Unicode
will be perfectly adequate for most computer applications, and how the "other"
obscure Chinese characters can really be dealt with...  Unicode will have
quite a bit of luck simply because there are such major companies who
pretty much have their sights set on it as the only reasonable solution currently
available or likely to be available in any reasonable timeframe.

> How would you like to collate text if your character set didn't organize
> characters in alphabetical order?

As to alphabetical order - it's obvious that having a single codeset order that
will satisfy the collation requirements of  all languages for all purposes
simultaneously is topologically impossible; so Unicode doesn't even try --
it isn't the job of a codeset to provide a perfect collation sequence for every
occasion.  The ISO 8859 codesets widely used in Europe don't provide good
collations either...

	Rick