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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/14/20 11:36 PM, Sławomir Osipiuk
wrote:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAM+ijLhNXTeAKPHmEazqiTXKJ=k9o9b0QVD8fa91mFF90r5LNw@mail.gmail.com">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">On Mon, Dec 14, 2020 at 8:05 PM Mark E. Shoulson via Unicode
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:unicode@unicode.org"><unicode@unicode.org></a> wrote:
</pre>
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
All TAG symbols placed between a U+E003D TAG LESS-THAN SIGN and a U+E003E TAG GREATER-THAN SIGN, inclusive, are to be treated as if they were they corresponding ASCII characters, and run that through an HTML renderer. I guess if you wanted you could stipulate some reduced or restricted subset of HTML
</pre>
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
I've been informed off-list that BabelPad uses this as a formatting
option. So, it's been done.</pre>
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<p><br>
</p>
<p>I think I've heard that too.
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAM+ijLhNXTeAKPHmEazqiTXKJ=k9o9b0QVD8fa91mFF90r5LNw@mail.gmail.com">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">This solution technically constitutes a higher-level protocol anyway.
It's a markup language, just using unusual characters, but it's not in
any fundamental way a Unicode feature, official or not.</pre>
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<p><br>
</p>
<p>But how is that different from anything being proposed? If this
idea were accepted as part of Unicode, then it *would* be a
feature of Unicode, just as whatever is being proposed would be if
it were accepted. How does it matter if italicizing something is
marked by some new U+DEADBF characters or by existing tag
characters?</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Is it markup? Yes, probably. But so is using other characters
to mark things up the same way. As I said above, this essentially
makes plain text a special case of HTML, which does seem sort of
backward. If you insist that Unicode-compliant text readers must
show italics or bold when marked with such-and-such characters,
how is that different from saying they have to act like HTML
renderers?</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>(There might be some distinctions. Maybe plain text doesn't
reformat lines the way HTML does, etc. But if there's any
reasonable form of the pseudo-markup being discussed, a
modification of HTML can certainly do the same.)<br>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAM+ijLhNXTeAKPHmEazqiTXKJ=k9o9b0QVD8fa91mFF90r5LNw@mail.gmail.com">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">If this sounds disturbing and wrong to you,
</pre>
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
Disturbing? No. Wrong? I'd say "not my first choice". There are plenty
of things already approved that actually disturb me, but I won't go on
that tangent now.</pre>
</blockquote>
Conversely, if you're okay with pseudo-markup, this should sound
fine to you. Why doesn't it?
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAM+ijLhNXTeAKPHmEazqiTXKJ=k9o9b0QVD8fa91mFF90r5LNw@mail.gmail.com">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">then other pseudo-markup ideas probably should as well.
</pre>
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
Pseudo-markup already exists in Unicode, in multiple, inconsistent
ways. It exists because it was, at some point, by some people, deemed
useful enough and compatible enough with the aims of Unicode to be
included. I'm boggled by how annotations got in.
I'm well aware of scope creep and I'm not at all in favour of making
Unicode a Turing-complete programming language. That's why I proposed
something that fits into an already-established method that Unicode
has already defined. It even includes a bit of syntactic salt in the
way format nesting must be done that drives implementers to other
protocols for anything beyond rudimentary effects.</pre>
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<p><br>
</p>
<p>I suppose an potential advantage to making a whole new layer of
markup (how would this markup interact with other markup, like
HTML, I wonder?) is that it can be limited in scope and make
feature-creep a little harder. But not all that much. Want to
support a new kind of markup? In one regime, you have to propose
new markup characters. In the other, you have to change the
specifications of the subset of HTML in use (which may be
easier.) Is that the advantage you see in novel markup
characters?
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>~mark<br>
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