Unclear text in the UBA (UAX#9) of Unicode 6.3

[Ilya Zakharevich]

On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 07:08:56PM +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Sorry, I do not see any definition here.  Just a collection of words
> > which looks like a definition, but only locally…
> 
> Any definition is just a collection of words, of course.  Can you tell
> what is missing from this collection to make it eligible?

This is a very delicate question, of course.  And it is very personal:
every definition assumes a certain target population.  But let me try:

  A) It should be immediately clear which of the possible meanings of
     every word/phrase was intended by the author;

  B) It should have a unique non-self-contradictory interpretation;

  C) The reader should immediately get a feeling that given enough
     effort, one will be able to understand what is the interpretation
     in (B).

Now, (A) avoids exponential growth of possible “local
interpretations”.  The need for (B) is self-obvious (although what is
self-contradictory would also depend on the reader’s abilities).

And (C) is a major psychological help: usually, (A) cannot stop the
exponential growth of possible “global interpretations” (“how the
pieces are intended to joint together”).  Essentially, one gets a tree
of possible choices, and it is crucial that when searching along the
tree, one can cut off “wrong” branches as early as possible.

Ilya