Re: [9front] [PATCH] introduce code points above BMP to /lib/unicode

[ori@eigenstate.org]

Quoth qwx@sciops.net:
> On Mon Oct 17 22:28:26 +0200 2022, moody@mail.posixcafe.org wrote:
> > Some additional discussion I'd like to get some input on is if we
> > should just include the entirety of UnicodeData.txt.  There are some
> > fields in there, notably decomposition mappings, that would be quite
> > useful.  It would also be nice to generate the ranges used in things
> > like runetype(2) from the upstream documents so that we can more
> > easily keep up to date.
> > 
> > On this topic, I have been considering what should be done about
> > compositional runes in general, as we currently do nothing with them.
> [...]
> 
> I think that if this is of significant practical value and an
> improvement in quality of life here, it should be done.  My question
> is, and maybe I've missed an obvious answer, how often is this needed
> or used in general, and what do people do when it's missing?  I
> haven't been able to follow all of the discussions on input methods
> and I don't know much about the subject, but I'm curious about how far
> this must be pushed.

Currently 9front only works well with the latinoid languages, and
with Moody's work, I suspect passably with Chinese and Japanese.

Languages like hebrew (the only non-latin language I know) are
unusable, though with hebrew the larger problem is the lack of
right to left support.

as far as what people do when it's missing? use english; I can't
do hebrew on 9front. doesn't work.

saying "it will never work" is an option; I think our UI will
always be in English, for example, but it seems like it would
be a nice goal to type and view any language correctly.

at the same time, it *is* a lot of complexity.

> > [...] With this change, the
> > combinational runes would essentially become zero width codepoints to
> > the perspective of libdraw users.  Which means backspacing (without
> > any changes) would require two(or more) hits to fully strike out the
> > rune, progressively unwinding the modifications.  This makes sense to
> > me, but I cant make assumptions about how others use these runes.
> 
> Again, I can't speak for anyone, but personally I'd always expect one
> single backspace to erase any megarune, which is also what I've seen
> in virtual keyboards on the shitphones I've touched.  I'd be very
> confused if some characters in the middle of a sentence refuse to be
> removed at once.

In hebrew input, at least, I'd expect the opposite; I think it will
end up depending on culture what behavior is 'normal', but  on this
sort of thing, we can set our own expectations.