ANN: unicode 2.8
Terry Reedy
tjreedy at udel.edu
Sat Jan 2 17:16:43 EST 2021
On 1/1/2021 3:48 PM, garabik-news-2005-05 at kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk wrote:
> Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> wrote:
>> On 12/31/2020 9:36 AM, garabik-news-2005-05 at kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk wrote:
>>> unicode is a simple python command line utility that displays
>>> properties for a given unicode character, or searches
>>> unicode database for a given name.
>> ...
>>> Changes since previous versions:
>>>
>>> * display ASCII table (either traditional with --ascii or the new
>>> EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement version with --brexit-ascii)
The latter option implied to me that the agreement defines an
intentional variation on standard ASCII. I immediately wondered whether
they had changed the actual 7-bit ascii code, which would be egregiously
bad, or made yet another variation of 8-bit 'extended ascii', perhaps to
ensure inclusion both the pound and euro signs.
So I googled 'brexit ascii'. And was surprised to discover that there
is no such thing as 'brexit ascii', just yet another cock-up in text
preparation. (I have seen worse when a digital text of mine was mangled
during markup. Fortunately, I was allowed to read the page proofs. But
I still don't understand how spelling errors were introduced within
words I had spelled correctly.)
>> Are you reproducing it with bugs included?
>> How is that of any use to anyone?
I followed this with links to justify my claim and question:
A tweet linking the treaty annex page
https://twitter.com/thejsa_/status/1343291595899207681
A stackoverflow question and discussion of the bugs and oddities.
https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/61178/why-does-the-eu-uk-trade-deal-have-the-7-bit-ascii-table-as-an-appendix
In the latter are mentions of other text, perhaps copy-pasted from the
1990s recommending the now deprecated SHA1 and referring to Netscape
Navigator 4 as a modern browser. Clearly, in the rush to finish, the
annex was not properly reviewed by current technical experts.
> Including the (correct) ASCII table has been a long term, low priority -
> I am using ascii(1) utility reasonably often and it makes sense to
> reproduce this functionality.
>
> And when implementing this, it was a no-brainer to include also the
> brexit varian (verbatim).
I assume you meant 'variation' and not Varian, the maker of scientific
instruments.
But why do you consider it a no-brainer to include nonsense in your
program and mislead people? People already have enough trouble dealing
with text coding.
> After all, given the blood and sweat and tears
> shed during the negotiations, I am sure each and every line of the
> Agreement has been combed and (re)negotiated over and over by experienced
> negotiators and verified an army of experts in the fields <sarcasm off/>
What are we supposed to make of this? That you already knew that
'brexit-ascii' is nonsense?
--
Terry Jan Reedy
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