Re: Possible BofF question -- I18n

[Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>]

On 03/06/2018 18:13, Nico Williams wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 02, 2018 at 03:54:54PM +1200, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
>> I'm an ignoramus, but:
>> On 02/06/2018 05:59, Nico Williams wrote:
>> ...
>>> Not everyone can pick up I18N expertise  quickly?  Sure, but we engineer
>>> complex things, so i suspect many participants at the IETF can actually
>>> pick up enough I18N expertise to be useful. I18N is not a dark art.
>>
>> If a dark art is one that involves combinatorial degrees of complexity
>> mixed with human perception, judgment and emotion, then I fear that I18N
>> *is* a dark art. We can perhaps manage such complexity by limiting the
>> scope of what we try to do in our protocols, but I for one would very
>> much appreciate having an I18N directorate reviewing everything.
> 
> I disagree.  It's not a black art.  There are some corners where
> reasonable people can and will disagree (should emoji be allowed in
> domainnames?), and there will be some cases that require script-specific
> expertise, and therefore a lot of time to sort out.  But I18N is not a
> dark art at all.  If it were, then how would we get anything done in
> that space?  The E in IETF stands for Engineering, not Dark Art.

We're in a space where the evaluation of A==B depends on more than
the bit strings A and B. Your post about form-insensitive filename
comparisons is a case in point, although I don't pretend to understand
it. OK, we can argue whether that's a dark art or simply complicated
engineering, but really what I need is (a) some generally applicable
guidelines on protocol design in this area and (b) some people willing to
review any relevant design work.

    Brian