Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hplabs!hpfcso!hpfcdc!donn
From: donn@hpfcdc.HP.COM (Donn Terry)
Newsgroups: comp.std.internat
Subject: Re: ISO standards for non-Latin alphabets
Message-ID: <9300003@hpfcdc.HP.COM>
Date: 28 Nov 89 03:51:49 GMT
References: <433@wjh12.harvard.edu>
Organization: HP Ft. Collins, Co.
Lines: 18

Since I havn't seen it mentioned yet:  IEEE 1003.2 (POSIX.2) which is
currently in balloting addresses the issue of collation, case shift,
case-independent comparison, etc.  reasonably well.  Clearly it handles
issues such as collation order being distinct from codeset order, and it
also handles at least some of the strangeness with German sharp-s and
Spanish ch and ll.  It's being refined at the moment, and it seems quite
possible that it will handle any problem short of sorting words with the
same spelling and different pronunciation sorting differently (which is
NOT necessarily the worst problem).  I don't yet know for sure whether
it will handle what I am told Thai does: collate on first vowel.

None of the problems in Birnbaum's paper seemed at all difficult for
POSIX.2 internationalization to handle.

Donn Terry
HP Ft. Collins.
(Oh yeah... and U.S. Internationalization rapporteur for SC22/WG15
among other silly titles.)