On Sat, Feb 02, 2002 at 02:16:37AM -0800, Bernard Miller wrote:
> Hopefully flags will go off when members of this list read things that are
> equivalent to "I don't understand it but here is my opinion on it...".
Flags certainly go off; but which flags depend on who is saying it.
David Starner is not an idiot.
> Bytext is a superset of Unicode normalization form C, so it certainly
> encodes all of ASCII including form feed, and all combining characters.
> ASCII code points are rearranged partly so that characters like form feed
> can be quickly identified by normalization algorithms. This is far from
> "losing ASCII compatibility". It simply means that conversion must be
> proper, not simply ignoring certain ranges. Also, there is no need for a new
In other words, losing ASCII compatibility. If I have to convert the
file, then it's not compatible; it needs an intermediary. That's the
biggest reason UTF-8 exists; it provides a relatively easy transition
path, since it's a superset of ASCII. Without that, UTF-8 would never
have caught on, either.
> that it will never catch on. Many people who seem to have an emotional
> attachment to Unicode seem to be providing this as the only evidence that
> Bytext is not worthwhile... as if how interesting something is should be
> directly related to how well devleoped and popular it is. Again, I hope
> flags go off.
If the only thing this has over UTF-8 is fast regex, then it loses
overall; complexity is a strike bigger than the gain. I read a simple
description of UTF-8 once and immediately had a strong understanding of
its structure, capabilities (easy reverse scanning; fast substring
searching), advantages (direct compatibility with ASCII, robustness that
most multibyte encodings lack) and so on.
Note also that popularity among developers *does* say something that
popularity among the masses does not. Developers tend to choose their
APIs and standards more deliberately than users choose their software.
You really need to stop arguing your point by arguing the motives
("emotional attachment") and insulting the intelligence of people (they
just can't understand it!) disagreeing with you. As you say, "flags go
off" when I see that. (Ad hominem flags, incidentally.)
--
Glenn Maynard
--
Linux-UTF8: i18n of Linux on all levels
Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-utf8/
