Re: library for unicode collation in C for texi2any?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2023 11:31:54 +0000 (UTC)
> Cc: pertusus@free.fr, bug-texinfo@gnu.org
> From: Werner LEMBERG <wl@gnu.org>
> 
> >> [...] Neither collation corresponds to Unicode codepoints.
> >
> > That's exactly what we should not do.
> 
> I strongly disagree.
> 
> > People who read German don't necessarily live in Germany, and
> > Texinfo is not a general-purpose system for typesetting documents,
> > it is a system for writing software documentation.
> 
> What you describe is certainly valid for a function index, say.
> However, a concept index – which is an essential part of any
> documentation IMHO – that doesn't sort as expected is at the border of
> being useless.

You are exaggerating, and that doesn't help.  In practice, the
problems are minor, and consistency is much more important.

> > Besides, which German are you talking about?  There are several
> > German-based locales, each one with its own local tailoring.
> 
> It doesn't matter.

If this "doesn't matter", then why do you insist on this?

>   There are zillions of German computer books that
> come with an index, and such books *are* read in all German-speaking
> countries and elsewhere, irrespective of a fine-tuned locale used for
> the exact index order.  *This* part can be easily standardized by
> making Texinfo support exactly one German locale ('de').
> 
> > So consistency in Texinfo is IMNSHO more important that fine-tuning
> > the order to a specific locale and language.
> 
> What good for is this consistency if it is extremely user-unfriendly?

It will be "user-unfriendly" anyway, if we use one flavor of German,
because users in a different locale will not expect that.

> What exactly is the problem if, say, an MS compilation produces a
> slightly different sorting order in the index?  Just add a sentence to
> the build instructions and tell the people what to expect.

You are wrong.  Your POV is skewed.  And that is all I can tell you on
this matter, since it looks like continuing this discussion is not
useful.