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kunfuu | 5 years ago

My 2cents.

1. A markup language taking multi-lingual considerations to heart is a must for me. Markdown doesn't work well for non-alphabetic languages in terms of typesetting etc. The web is global and multi-lingual, a new web (if there is one) should be, too.

2. I prefer a new content web rather than a new document web. When I use the web, I absorb and sometimes create content beyond documents. I don't want art communities, for example, to be excluded from the new web. Although an art sharing community can be modeled after documents technically, 'content' is the more apropos. Your mileage may vary, though.

discuss

order

maxxk|5 years ago

I don't have experience with non-alphabetic writing systems, but I was under impression that for simple written communication nowadays plain text is good enough for every language supported by Unicode. I've heard e.g. about Han unification, but is it bad enough even for non-linguistic purposes?

Which features, in your opinion, are required for decent non-alphabetic language compatibility on top of plain Unicode text?

irrational|5 years ago

The first thing that comes to mind is things like right-to-left or top-to-bottom languages. Some ancient languages were written right-to-left and then left-to-right and then repeat.

kunfuu|5 years ago

Markdown isn't plain Unicode text. It mixes markup marks with plain text, and is intended to provide more layout than plain text. Plus, the question is rather broad, as there are so many non-alphabetic languages around the globe. I'm not knowledgeable enough to offer an answer.

You may want to read the work by W3C[0]. Some requirements mentioned exceed the needs of simple written communication, but not all in my experience. The problems usually arise when you mix different scripts.

[0] https://www.w3.org/TR/typography/

EDIT: clarifications.