Encoding italic

[James Kass via Unicode]

Responding to David Starner,

 > I might complain about the people who claim to like plain text yet would
 > only be happy with massive changes to it, though.

Most movie lovers welcomed talkies.

People are free to cling to their rotary phones as long as they like.  
They just can't press the pound sign.

 > However, plain text can be used standalone, and it can be used inside
 > programs and other formats.

That remains true even post-emoji.  How would italics change that?

 > Dismissing the people who use Unicode in ways that aren't plain text
 > is unfair and hurts your case.

It wasn't my intention to be dismissive, much, so point taken. 
Discussions like this one exist so that people can express concerns and 
share ideas towards resolutions.

 > Adding italics to Unicode will complicate the implementation of all rich
 > text applications that currently support italics.

Would there be any advantages to rich-text apps if italics were added to 
Unicode?  Is there any cost/benefit data?  You've made an assertion 
about complication to rich-text apps which I can neither confirm nor refute.

One possible advantage would be interoperability.  People snagging 
snippets of text from web pages or word processors and dropping data 
into their plain-text windows wouldn't be bamboozled by the unexpected.  
If computer text is getting exchanged, isn't it better when it can be 
done in a standard fashion?