Comments on
PDAM 1 on ISO/IEC 14651:2001, accompanying a NEGATIVE vote.
(Preliminary, need to be confirmed
by Swedish NB)
If the MAJOR comments below are accommodated in an acceptable way, our vote will be changed to a yes.
SE 1. (MAJOR) Changes to clause 3 should be listed in the amendment:
* refer to ISO/IEC 10646-1:2000
* refer to ISO/IEC 10646-2:2001
Have a 'note' saying that those two together have the same repertoire and code point
assignments as Unicode 3.1. References to older editions of 10646 and its amendments
should be removed.
SE 2. Annex B: All of the tailoring examples should refer to the new table.
SE 3. (MAJOR) Annex A: The table should be extended to cover all of Unicode 3.1. If, during
the processing of this amendment to 14651, amendment 1 to 10646-1:2000 is
approved, consideration should be given to cover also those characters.
SE 4. (MAJOR) The ordering of runic letters should follow the FUÞARK based ordering.
This is the ordering in which runic letters are traditionally presented. ABC-ordering
of the runic letters should be left to tailorings for specific purposes. Even though
ABC-ordering of runic letters may have been used during the late period of runic letter
usage, no evidence of this has been presented by runic experts, and would even so
be an influence of the then dominating latin script, not the order in which runes where
originally thought of. Further, when using runic letters as counters (for calendaric
calculations, at least), the FUÞARK order was used, much as ABC order of the
latin script is used for item list numbering.
SE 5. All Han based characters (CJK URO, CJK ext A, CJK ext B), should be ordered
together, in the order mentioned (currently ext A comes before the URO).
SE 6. (MAJOR) All <MIN> subweightings at level 3 that correspond to (pseudo-) combining
characters should be changed to <BLK> (possibly name-changed to <ACC>), in order
to make the weighting system more transparent to a human reader. (NOTE THAT
<MIN> should NOT be read as 'third level MINimum weight', but as 'third level weight
for MINuscule (or caseless) letter/digit'; <BLK> (=<ACC>) is the minimum third level
weight.
SE 7. US NB suggests to introduce a <MAX> weight; but since <MIN> is not minimum, the
name <MAX> would be misleading, making the reader think that <MIN> is mimumum.
Instead of <MAX> the name <LIG> is suggested.
SE 8. (MAJOR) Insert as a new annex E "Order-preserving subkey reduction"; moving the
bibliography to annex F. The text is attached at the end of these comments, and can
be obtained in electronic form from the Swedish NB. The kind of subkey reduction
described in (new) annex E is inherent in the "position" directive, and this annex
motivates why the "position" directive is sound. Further, annex E describe "high-level"
optimisations, not just implementation level optimisations.
SE 9. (MAJOR) The clauses in 14651 should be rearranged as follows (i.e. insert this as an
instruction to the editor, in the amendment text; as a basis for the next edition of 14651):
1. Scope
2. Conformance
3. Normative references
4. Definitions and symbols [from current 4 and 5]
5. Common Template Table: formation and interpretation
[current 6.3, except 6.3.5 and 6.3.6]
6. Declaration of a delta [current 6.4]
7. String comparison [current 6.1 and 6.2]
8. Conditions for collation equivalence [from current 6.3.5 and 6.3.6]
Annex A - Common Template Table [and its name, current 6.5]
[and then the other annexes: B to F]
The subclause divisions are intended to be kept, even though the subclauses are not
listed above.
This is a more logical exposition order of the contents of 14651, without making any
normative change.
SE 10. The note for I 3 should use <BASE> instead of <BLANK>.
SE 11. (MAJOR) It has been suggested that the ordering after this amendment should not
be changed, INCLUDING that added characters are collated (via the CTT) at the end,
leaving better ordering of them to tailorings. Sweden does NOT support this LATTER
part of stability, since the CTT should give a good default ordering for characters
that are not of immediate concern to tailor.
Annex E...
September 27, 2001