Most commenters seem to be under the impression that German orthography gained a new letter, or that uppercase sharp S will
be the norm. This is not the case. From the original article:
> The change doesn’t mean that everyone now has to use a Capital Sharp S. The previous spelling of replacing ß with SS in uppercase texts remains the default for the time being.
The Council for German Orthography sanctioned the use of the uppercase ß. They just accepted the fact that it exits and is used. No more, no less.
That being said, I find it a bit ironic that at first Unicode had to bend over backwards to allow the strange surjective mapping that only German requires, only to later resolve to problem the easy way with the introduction of a new character. I mean it's probably the right thing to do, because both things are used in German, but on the other hand it introduces a lot of complications just for one very specific special case.
It's a bit more important than that, since ẞ didn't "exist" in official use before (if you have a name with ß, the spelling on your ID card can now use ẞ, instead of SS where its unclear if it is ss or ß, now it becomes valid in schools, ...), but yes, it's only an accepted variant now.
> The change doesn’t mean that everyone now has to use a Capital Sharp S. The previous spelling of replacing ß with SS in uppercase texts remains the default for the time being.
The Council for German Orthography sanctioned the use of the uppercase ß. They just accepted the fact that it exits and is used. No more, no less.
That being said, I find it a bit ironic that at first Unicode had to bend over backwards to allow the strange surjective mapping that only German requires, only to later resolve to problem the easy way with the introduction of a new character. I mean it's probably the right thing to do, because both things are used in German, but on the other hand it introduces a lot of complications just for one very specific special case.