But, if that is the distinction (and, I agree, that is what ISO has said
that its definitions are), then is it not the case that
(i) By making the decision that idiographic characters that "look the
same" (i.e., have the same glyphs) are coded the same way, IS 10646
becomes a "glyph standard" not a "character standard" for the subset of
languages involved?
Is the first of these points the key to the point that Mashataka Ohta is
trying to make?
I don't have much interest in how, ISO thinks, networking should be layered.
Likewise, I don't have much interest in what, ISO thinks, characters are.
I have no interest in what, Keld thinks ISO thinks, characters are.
I just think characters are something through whose shape information
is represented/transmitted.
So, I want character code be informative enough so that I can produce
state-of-the-art quality shape of Japanese characters and Chinese
characters without requiring external profiling information.
I just want a plain text output of Japanese without requiring external
profiling information.
Thus,
The Working Group specified the definition of a character set
for the purposes of quad-x to be a unique mapping of a byte
stream to glyphs, a mapping which does not require external
profiling information.
is very convincing.
And, as I quoted, Unicode Inc. and other supporters of Unicode clearly
and repeatedly state that Unicode fails to be so.
Masataka Ohta
PS
CAUTION: Don't be confused by the fact that Unicode gives unique mapping
of a byte stream to glyphs of almost all *EUROPEAN* languages without
requiring external profiling informaiton.