Re: [Ltru] Re: Identifying script (or global) variants

Since people's understanding of the text differs from yours, we have at
least a problem in clarity of the text.

I think we do have a problem. Not a huge one, since the variants are little
used, but insofar as they are used, someone looking at the text of RFC and
the registry should be able to tell whether
en-VARIANT1-VARIANTA
is the same as
en-VARIANTA-VARIANT1
or not.

   - If they are not intended to be the same, then what is the difference
   between them? Which one should be used where?
   - If they are intended to be different, then the canonicalization
   should be the same, so that spurious differences can be erased in
   comparison.

If the standard is silent on these issues, then we just have a muddle.

Mark

On 2/20/07, John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org> wrote:
>
> Mark Davis scripsit:
>
> > Overkill compared to what? Please be more explicit.
>
> Compared with any other option, including doing nothing.
>
> > My main point was that we have a problem with multiple variants,
>
> I'm willing to be convinced that we have a problem, but I don't see
> any problem yet.
>
> > because the ordering doesn't make a difference in 4646,
>
> There is no statement to that effect in 4646, which simply says that
> multiple variants are allowed, without saying that order matters
> or doesn't matter semantically.  (Order does, of course, matter
> to the algorithms in 4647.)
>
> > but we don't canonicalize to any order.
>
> If order matters in some particular case, we provide for it by encouraging
> the use of a Prefix: field on the secondary variant that specifies the
> appropriate primary variant(s).  Otherwise, I don't see any reason to
> fix what isn't broken.
>
> --
> Values of beeta will give rise to dom!          John Cowan
> (5th/6th edition 'mv' said this if you tried    http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
> to rename '.' or '..' entries; see              cowan@ccil.org
> http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/odd.html)
>

-- 
Mark