long-char, kanji

["Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>]

    Didn't you do an informal survey a while back on who actually used the
    standardized bits and fonts in characters?  I believe the consensus was
    that nobody used them, either because an implementation didn't want to
    bother, or because it was inadequate and had to be extended by those
    implementations that did want more bits in characters.

Well, the question came up, and I don't remember anyone expressing any
fondness for Char-Bit and Char-Font, but on this list you never know if
silence means agreement or fatigue.

Let's try it again:

Suppose we were to change the standard to eliminate the Bit and Font
fields in characters.  (Such fields, along with other attributes such as
"style", would be allowed as extensions, but Char-Bit and Char-Font would
no longer be part of the standard language.)  Would anyone be screwed by
this?  Would anyone even be unhappy about it?

This is a survey, not a formal proposal, but the result may guide our
discussions in the future.

-- Scott