NNBSP

[Marcel Schneider via Unicode]

On 18/01/2019 22:03, Shawn Steele via Unicode wrote:
>
> I've been lurking on this thread a little.
>
> This discussion has gone “all over the place”, however I’d like to point out that part of the reason NBSP has been used for thousands separators is because that it exists in all of those legacy codepages that were mentioned predating Unicode.
>
> Whether or not NNBSP provides a better typographical experience, there are a lot of legacy applications, and even web services, that depend on legacy codepages.  NNBSP may be best for layout, but I doubt that making it work perfectly for thousand separators is going to be some sort of magic bullet that solves any problems that NBSP provides.
>
> If folks started always using NNBSP, there are a lot of legacy applications that are going to start giving you ? in the middle of your numbers. 
>
> Here’s a partial “dir > out.txt” after changing my number thousands separator to NNBSP in French on Windows (for example).
>
> 13/01/2019  09:48            15?360 AcXtrnal.dll
>
> 13/01/2019  09:46            54?784 AdaptiveCards.dll
>
> 13/01/2019  09:46            67?584 AddressParser.dll
>
> 13/01/2019  09:47            24?064 adhapi.dll
>
> 13/01/2019  09:47            97?792 adhsvc.dll
>
> 10/04/2013  08:32           154?624 AdjustCalendarDate.exe
>
> 10/04/2013  08:32         1?190?912 AdjustCalendarDate.pdb
>
> 13/01/2019  10:47           534?016 AdmTmpl.dll
>
> 13/01/2019  09:48            58?368 adprovider.dll
>
> 13/01/2019  10:47           136?704 adrclient.dll
>
> 13/01/2019  09:48           248?832 adsldp.dll
>
> 13/01/2019  09:46           251?392 adsldpc.dll
>
> 13/01/2019  09:48           101?376 adsmsext.dll
>
> 13/01/2019  09:48           350?208 adsnt.dll
>
> 13/01/2019  09:46           849?920 adtschema.dll
>
> 13/01/2019  09:45           146?944 AdvancedEmojiDS.dll
>
> There are lots of web services that still don’t expect UTF-8 (I know, bad on them), and many legacy applications that don’t have proper UTF-8 or Unicode support (I know, they should be updated).  It doesn’t seem to me that changing French thousands separator to NNBSP solves all of the perceived problems.
>
Keeping these applications outdated has no other benefit than providing a handy lobbying tool against support of NNBSP. What are all these expected to do while localized with scripts outside Windows code pages?

Also when you need those apps, just tailor your French accordingly. That should not impact all other users out there interested in a civilized layout, that we cannot get with NBSP, as this is justifying and numbers are torn apart in justified layout, nor with FIGURE SPACE as recommended in UAX#14 because it’s too wide and has no other benefit. BTW figure space is the same question mark in Windows terminal I guess, based on the above.

As long as SegoeUI has NNBSP support, no worries, that’s what CLDR data is for. Any legacy program can always use downgraded data, you can even replace NBSP if the expected output is plain ASCII. Downgrading is straightforward, the reverse is not true, that is why vetters are working so hard during CLDR surveys. CLDR data is kind of high-end, that is the only useful goal. Again downgrading is easy, just run a tool on the data and the job is done. You’ll end up with two libraries instead of one, but at least you’re able to provide a good UX in environments supporting any UTF.

Best,

Marcel

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