<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><br class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">11 okt. 2023 kl. 10:02 skrev Giacomo Catenazzi via Unicode <<a href="mailto:unicode@corp.unicode.org" class="">unicode@corp.unicode.org</a>>:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div class=""> We may find that ASCII provide different level of separations (FS, GS, RS, US, </div></div></blockquote><div><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">As far as I know, NOBODY is using these anymore. But I may be wrong; really<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">old applications do not count, nor do EBCDIC ones (which also fall in the<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">"really old" category).<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">Note however that Unicode does not really have these; Unicode (referencing<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">ECMA-48; in the ISO/IEC version) has IS1, IS2, IS3, IS4, and they have <b class="">no<o:p class=""></o:p></b></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><b class="">pre-defined hierarchy</b>. A hierarchy, if any, there need not be anyone, is defined<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">by the application. So Unicode was wrong in equating them as aliases.<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div class="">but also EM, FF, CR/LF, </div></div></blockquote><div><br class=""></div><div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">Nobody (I hope) is using EM. But FF, CR, LF are of course commonly used.<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">LS and PS (Unicode replacements) never gained popularity, for compatibility<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">reasons; they will likely never gain popularity.</div></div><div><br class=""></div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div class="">and also SPACE), or with ECMA, more about style (but as I found in Wikipedia, each terminal has own interpretation of ”red" and "highlight red", </div></div></blockquote><div><br class=""></div><div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">Yes, that is annoying... See <o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><a href="https://github.com/kent-karlsson/control/blob/main/ecma-48-style-modernisation-2023B.pdf" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193);" class="">https://github.com/kent-karlsson/control/blob/main/ecma-48-style-modernisation-2023B.pdf</a>,<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">esp. page 31. But 35 or so years ago there were technical limitations, but we<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">do not have those today, for many displays.</div></div><br class=""><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div class="">But also this last fact may give us some hints: why we do not use ECMA anymore for such formatting?</div></div></blockquote><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">By ECMA, I assume you mean ECMA-48 (as I assume above).<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">ECMA-48 *is* very commonly used. Unfortunately only in terminal emulators.<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">There is no need for that limitation. The formatting part (modernised)<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">may well be used in text files as well. See<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><a href="https://github.com/kent-karlsson/control/blob/main/ecma-48-style-modernisation-2023B.pdf" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193);" class="">https://github.com/kent-karlsson/control/blob/main/ecma-48-style-modernisation-2023B.pdf</a>.<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">(ECMA-48 has other stuff as well, in particular for keyboard input, as well as<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">"terminal screen editing" (and those are used for terminal emulators). These<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">are of course not suitable for text files with formatting. But ECMA-48 is a mix of stuff.)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div class="">For sure Microsoft knew it very well e.g. for Microsoft Word</div></div></blockquote><div><br class=""></div><div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">1) ECMA-48 (even with the modernisation proposed in<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><a href="https://github.com/kent-karlsson/control/blob/main/ecma-48-style-modernisation-2023B.pdf" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193);" class="">https://github.com/kent-karlsson/control/blob/main/ecma-48-style-modernisation-2023B.pdf</a>)<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">is *far* from sufficient for such things as (full-fledged) document formatting, spreadsheets,<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">and so on. But one does not always need full-fledged document formatting (such as HTML/CSS,<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">Word, etc.). A much more light-weight formatting system is often useful.<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">2) ECMA-48 has not been updated for over 30 years. I think that is a pity.<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">It is not at all a bad standard. (It even has support for Ruby; that you mentioned.)<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">But with an update I think it may well be used for "light-weight<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">formatted" text. I think there is a gap to fill between "plain text" editors<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">and (full-fledged) document format apps (including HTML/CSS which has lot and<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">lots of capabilities, and hard to implement in full), and plain text apps which<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">do not even allow italics or bold, or the slightest font size change (for a<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">heading for instance), and that gap may well be filled by using ECMA-48 in<o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">modernised form. (RTF is not all that attractive….) And ECMA-48 (or rather it’s</div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">ISO equivalent) is referenced by Unicode&ISO/IEC 10646.</div></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">/Kent K</div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><br class=""></div></div></body></html>