Re: Java I18N

On 01/11/06, Karen_Broome@spe.sony.com <Karen_Broome@spe.sony.com> wrote:
>
> Because of the structure of its symbols, Moon presents significant disadvantages over Braille in terms of digital representation. Braille's dotted form is easily represented using an electronic device -- I have a good friend who uses a Braille screen reader and I'm amazed at the speed of both the device and his fingers. The combination of curved and straight lines in Moon would be significantly harder to engineer for digital purposes. Even if you could do this, I can't see it ever being as fast as Braille. A Braille reader could follow hyperlinks, but once the text is embossed, the representation becomes fixed and flat.

There speaks a temporarily able bodied person I'd guess?
Moon fills a small gap for those (typically elderly) with lesser sensitivity
in their finger tips, or who find that braille is hard to learn when
sight is lost later in life.


>
> Printed, non-embossed Moon can't be read by the intended audience so that doesn't seem to be a true representation of the script.

Moon on screen or paper is a little like an object file, an interim stage
on its way through to a final form.
It has its uses. Debugging translators being one.


 However,  the characters could be encoded for applications that later
emboss Moon onto paper like the one I referenced.

Which is how it is produced commercially.  The 'standard' for moon is
a print document
which requires  a font change to show the moon shapes.
When its embossed the same ASCII characters are used.

  So yes, you're right. I can see a reason for standardized encodings.

I'll leave that to others to decide.
I can state that the UK audience for moon is (relatively) minute.
I don't know of any others.

A perspective might be, if all you can read is moon, its important to you.
Even braille presents less than 4% of what print readers have access to.

regards

-- 
Dave Pawson
XSLT XSL-FO FAQ.
http://www.dpawson.co.uk

Received on Wednesday, 1 November 2006 19:15:02 UTC