2008/7/27 Kyaw Tun <kyawtuns(a)gmail.com>
On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 8:23 AM, Andrew Cunningham <lang.support(a)gmail.com
wrote:
Hi all
as a rule cybercafes tend to be responsive to users.
If enough users ask for Unicode 5.1 support, and there are enough Unicode
5.1 sites, then cybercafes will support it.
Theoretically that is true. But I have got to explain a bit here more.
Reality is different. People love Zawgyi (non-gov) over Unicode 5.1 (gov).
People don't know usefulness of Unicode 5.1, but just know it does't look
good. Frankly I don't think people will install Unicode 5.1 font, unless
there is a change of image.
although i do hope to get Burmese line-breaking into Firefox and other
applications, once that starts to happen I suspect that the Zawgyi font will
start to break in websites. Zawgyi is incompatible with the Unicode approach
to Burmese, and as soon as more sophisticated support evloves I suspect that
we'll start to see problems with Zawgyi.
strange most of the Unicode 5.1 development work I've seen has had nothing
to do with the government.
basically there seems to be an education and information aspect to Unicode
5.1 that seems to be missing at present.
Burmese locale support is Unicode 5.1 based. Line
breaking and collation
routines that ake their way into major applications will be Uniocde 5/1
based, etc.
The question is how you facilitate the uptake rather than encouraging
people not to migrate.
Unicode transition is a long plan. It is just not possible immediate
transition as
my.wikipedia.org doing.
Partly I'd agree to that point, but I'd argue that it would be bettter to
put the effort into assisting and speeding up the transition. If that makes
sense?
I am very disappointment that Mr Jimbo Wales and Mr
Micheal Everson think
that people will migrate to 5.1 just by tell them 5.1 is better then Zawgyi.
*People will not imgrate to 5.1 just because of 5.1 is better. People need
trust and love.*
So my question is, what is the Burmese developer community doing to instill
that trust? At the moment the developer community (who should be taking the
lead) is divided.
It would appear to me that if the Burmese community isn't ready for Unicode
5.1 then they aren't ready for Unicode based services such as Wikipedia
either?
One of my concerns is that if developers block the uptake of Unicode 5.1 it
will set back the development of minority languages, unless Burmese is by
passed and all the advances occur within minority langauges rather than
Burmese?
Andrew
--
Andrew Cunningham
Vicnet Research and Development Coordinator
State Library of Victoria
Australia
andrewc(a)vicnet.net.au
lang.support(a)gmail.com