comments on the offic.standpoint of Japan

[Borka Jerman-Blazic <jerman-blazic@ijs.si>]

Please find enclosed the comments regarding the 
Japan approach of the use of UCS-2 (ISO 10646)
and UCS-4 comming from Canada. It seems that Ohta san proposals
are not in line with the official Jpanase stand point.

Regards,

==================


Yesterday I received ISO JTC1 SC2 WG2 December 1993 pack and 
I browsed through it during the long (1 hour) wait for contact lens 
adjustment at my daughter's optometrist.

I found very instructive (as an amateur of Zhong Wen [Chinese culture]), and
interesting, Beijing's contribution N937, a proposal to add a new category of
structured combinations to form virtually all existing Chinese characters on
earth: it even says how to combine the radicals to present them, bearer of
very useful information.  I found in document N995 (minutes of WG2 meeting 24)
that there were communication problems with the Chinese delegates and that this
had caused the group to send China to IRG instead of WG2 for presenting this
proposal.  How come?  It seems to me that it is WG2 matter, I guess people had
not read the interesting contribution before, which is extremely economic in
storage and allowing tens of thousands new characters for virtually no storage
cost in table data. 2nd question: What is IRG, so that I explain that to my
AAA (Anti-Acronymic Association) local chapter?  (-: :-)

Then I read the Japanese Position on an extension of UCS (N938): I tend to
agree with Professor Shibano that either UCS-2 is used as is or then we leap to
UCS-4 if extensions are needed.  My personal feeling is in agreement with the
expression of some members that most installations will not want to pay for
more than 2 octets per character.  This said, exposed with the error-prone
problem of extension mechanisms, most installations that would require to go
beyond that in my opinion would nevertheless prefer the simplicity of one and
only one straightforward standard as UCS-4.  Inventing a new ISO 2022 will only
do harm in my humble opinion.  So I strongly agree with the Japanese
position on this.  You may find this contradictory with my previous paragraph:
for Chinese I said I found that interesting and instructive and I think it
could be part of an informative annex, but first I have to study it more to see
if it is not too complex to handle, even if at first glance I think the imbedded
semantics might be worth the variable code in this single case only (as
other combining characters also have merits which I do not contest).


Have a very Merry Christmas, "hot" if you're in the Southern Hemisphere, and
"snowy" (even artificially for most of you) in the Northern one, and a very
happy new civil year of 1994.

Alain LaBonte'
Minist`ere des Communications du Que'bec
in the world capital of white snow, Que'bec