[Python-3000] PEP 3131 roundup

[Jim Jewett]

On 6/5/07, Josiah Carlson <jcarlson at uci.edu> wrote:
> Talin <talin at acm.org> wrote:

> > I haven't heard anyone whose native language is RTL
> > lobbying for support of their language.

...

> I don't believe I've read anything saying "since bidi is hard,
> lets not do unicode at all".

Not in those exact words, but Tomer did say, effectively

    bidi is hard -- probably too hard to get right yet.
    The current situation is better than rushing it.
    It wouldn't be fair to add support for some languages, but to exclude his.

Note, though, that this objection is really only to "unicode as a
single-switch".

It doesn't argue against letting individuals (or system admins or
local redistributors) add one script at a time for local use, and
letting each language community work things out for themselves.

I expect the issues to be settled more easily in Swedish than in
Hebrew or Arabic, but they'll both be supported to the extent that
they *can* use their letters if they work out a local agreement on
reasonable limits.  (Also note that Arabic and probably Hebrew have
additional issues to work out beyond bidi, such as whether to allow
certain presentational forms.  The unicode consortium recommends
against them, but they are still included in the ID_ group, as they
are technically letters.)

-jJ