Combining characters

[Doug Ewell]

Phil Smith III wrote:

> My observations/inferences/suppositions re combining characters:
> - They were originally implemented as a way to reduce the total number
> of characters

Another, possibly more farsighted reason is that, if a newly needed letter-with-diacritic can be represented today with an existing letter and an existing diacritic, instead of waiting possibly years for the precomposed combination to be encoded, that time saving is a big win for the user community.

> - Combiners are a pain overall (normalization!)
> [...]
> Ergo, I posit that there should never be a need for any NEW combiners.

Combining-character mechanisms are already implemented at many levels (processing, counting, fonts, rendering engines, etc.). More combining characters that work essentially the same as existing ones don’t really add to the pain.

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Doug Ewell, CC, ALB | Lakewood, CO, US | ewellic.org