zlacker

> The font shaping engine Harfbuzz, used in applications such as Firefox and Chrome, comes with a Wasm shaper allowing arbitrary code to be used to "shape" text.

Has there already been a proposal to add scripting functionality to Unicode itself? Seems to me we're not very far from that anymore...

>>xg15+(OP)
Unicode OS when?

>>xg15+(OP)
Considering the actual complexity of rendering e.g. Urdu in decent, native-looking way you presumably do want some Turing-complete capabilities at least in some cases, cf "One handwritten Urdu newspaper, The Musalman, is still published daily in Chennai.[232] InPage, a widely used desktop publishing tool for Urdu, has over 20,000 ligatures in its Nastaʿliq computer fonts." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urdu#Writing_system)

Edit—the OP uses this exact use case, Urdu typesetting, to justify WASM in Harfbuzz (video around 6:00); seems like Urdu has really become the posterchild for typographic complexity these days

>>xg15+(OP)
To Unicode? Good god please no. Unicode is just codepoints. I shudder to think what adding scripting support to that would even mean.

Maybe you meant adding it to OpenType?

>>xg15+(OP)
You mean encoding executable code in plain text files, that execute when you open them? No, that seems unnecessary and very insecure.

>>crazyg+hg
I was being sarcastic, but yes, I meant unicode...

>>xg15+QB
Sometimes you just can't tell, you know... OK, my sanity is restored, thanks. :)

>>xg15+(OP)
No, because Unicode doesn't concern itself with rendering, it's just for codepoints.

>>xg15+(OP)
That sounds disgusting.