i18n@... wrote:

>
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> >
> > > I must say that I am thoroughly enjoying your book but sincerely
> > > regret that when it stimulates my interest in how the script is
> > > keyboarded you find that inapropriate.
> >
> > Do you think Richard Sproat's main criticism, that the last chapter
> > didn't include a discussion of the computer technology available in the
> > early 1990s, is valid?
>
> This is an issue I have heard Ken Lunde discuss in the past about hi
> influential books CJK Computing and its later version CJKV Computing. He
> preferred not to describe the current applications
> of the data in the book, knowing it would go out of date rapidly, but
> the publisher insisted, especially for the earlier edition.
>
> Still, looking back at the information does give a useful sense of the
> state of the art at the time, what was tried, and what worked and didn't
> work at the time. It is far form complete, but there is little record of
> that important development path anywhere else.

And it would be entirely irrelevant to a book about the world's writing
systems. Fortunately, he was writing a book about the computerization of
CJKV, where it would be relevant.

> Had some of it been in your book as well, that would have been an
> important piece of history preserved, Still, I understand that your
> reluctance, in principal, is the same as Lunde's, and that you had more
> sway over your publisher then he did. Perhaps because his was a book
> directly aimed at software engineers, and yours was not.

The publisher had absolutely no interest whatsoever in the content of
the book. No one at their office ever read a word of it (other than one
sample chapter, I think) before it was published, and probably never
afterward, either.

> On the other hand, he was pre-eminently qualified to write that section,
> all principles no-withstanding, is it fair to say that you are not
> qualified to write it, even had you felt like it was a good topic to
> cover, and that might have played a part in your reluctance?

If either of us had thought a chapter on that topic was appropriate for
the book, we would have found the right person to write it.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...