Thank you, Robin! This is super helpful for keeping us all informed!

Tom.

On 2/9/24 10:49 AM, Robin Leroy via SG16 wrote:
> Dear ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG 21/SG 16,
>
> As I mentioned during the 2024-02-07 meeting, the alpha review period
> has begun for Unicode Version 16.0, slated for release later this year.
> See the blog post
> https://blog.unicode.org/2024/02/unicode-160-alpha-review-opens-for.html
> and the PRI background document
> https://www.unicode.org/review/pri497/pri497-background.html.
>
> As mentioned in the PRI background document, alpha review is for early
> review and comment on the repertoire proposed for eventual publication
> in Unicode 16.0.
> In particular, this is your last chance to propose corrections to
> character names, which show up in C++ via named-universal-character
> <http://eel.is/c++draft/lex.charset#nt:named-universal-character>.
>
> Some aspects of the répertoire have direct implications on properties
> and algorithms; this is especially the case when it comes to
> Normalization Forms.
> In particular, in Unicode 16.0, some characters are encoded with
> decompositions that interact with each other in novel ways. It is
> important to note that /there is no change to the normalization
> algorithm/: a straightforward implementation of normalization as
> described in the Unicode Standard for decades will handle these new
> characters fine. However, for some optimized implementations of
> normalization, these characters may constitute new edge cases. See
> https://www.unicode.org/review/pri497/pri497-background.html, under
> /Normalization: Important Novel Behavior/.
>
> Implementers of normalization (which includes implementers of C++23 by
> [lex.name] paragraph 1 <https://eel.is/c++draft/lex.name#1>) should
> check that their implementation works with the draft 16.0α data files,
> and that it passes the conformance tests in the associated
> NormalizationTest.txt.
> Of course, while they should get a head start on ironing out potential
> issues, implementers should not actually release a 16.0α normalizer,
> nor even a 16.0β normalizer later this year; only after final
> publication in September should products or implementations be
> released based on 16.0 data files.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Robin Leroy
>