Re: Unicode confusables and reordering characters considered harmful, a simple solution

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2021 11:34:06 +0000
> From: Gregory Heytings <gregory@heytings.org>
> cc: cpitclaudel@gmail.com, stefan@marxist.se, emacs-devel@gnu.org, 
>     db48x@db48x.net, monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, yuri.v.khan@gmail.com
> 
> >> From a theoretical point of view, that's correct.  From a practical 
> >> point of view, if these controls characters are only found in 0.01% of 
> >> the files that are hosted on, say, GitLab, and given that these 
> >> controls can have a dangerous effect, it is reasonable for an editor to 
> >> make them stand out.
> >
> > Since when is it OK to flag characters that are used very rarely? What 
> > would be the sense of doing that?  Should we perhaps flag all the 
> > Egyptian hieroglyphs for the same reason?
> 
> The answer is above: "given that these controls can have a dangerous 
> effect".

But they don't.  Not more than just using RTL characters within LTR
text would.  Just revisit the example posted by Stefan (which I
slightly modified to be more realistic):

      myfun("שָׁלוֹם" ,"السّلامعليكم");

Which string does this function call pass as the first argument, and
which as the second one?

> There's no reason to put a traffic sign in the middle of a forest.

Exactly.  And flagging those characters when they are used
legitimately is doing precisely that.