Unicode defines thousands of characters. Some “characters” are
surprising, and others are obvious. When I look at the Unicode
standard and consider the lengthy debates that occur when
deciding upon whether a character should be included, I can
imagine the discussion and rationalization that occurs. Deciding
on including a character can be difficult. One of the more
difficult concepts for me to appreciate is the difference
between light and dark (or black and white) characters. A real
example will help me explain this. Consider the “smiley face”
characters U+263A and U+263B: ☺ and ☻. These characters are
named WHITE SMILING FACE and BLACK SMILING FACE respectively.
These are not the only characters that have white and black
options. Dozens of others exist. There are even white and black
options for BLACK TELEPHONE and WHITE TELEPHONE. Of course, once
these characters go into the standard, they should stay. One
shouldn’t remove existing characters. However, a serious
question does arise when considering WHITE a