NEMONIC is not likely to be the
end-all of character sets, and if this groups gets bogged down trying
to make it so, we will remain forever in painful flamming deadlock.
I have to admit that I would be less resistant to the idea if the
mnemonics document became an experimental RFC. But if Keld and the IAB
decide to make it an Internet standard, then so be it. I'll just sit
at the sidelines and see what happens.
Meanwhile, as Randall pointed out, the Vietnamese are using and
specifying an incompatible mnemonic format. I'm pretty sure that they
will continue to use it, and that Keld's mnemonics will find the most
success in the area of Latin-1 characters, plus maybe a few others.
That is, I think it is likely that we would end up with two or more
different ways of doing "mnemonics", and that more than half of Keld's
currently proposed mnemonics would not even be used in significant
volumes.
That would be an "interesting" situation.
Nevertheless, I think that Keld's system is excellent, and I hope to
be able to make constructive comments in the future. Here is one, just
to get started:
I suggested using underline (_) instead of ampersand (&) as the
"introducer" character, but Keld replied that underline is already
used in important ways in the basic design. OK, I think I may be able
to see his point of view. Well then, how about using hyphen (-)
instead of ampersand? Readability would be much better, since hyphens
are low while ampersands are tall and wide.
Best Regards,
Erik