> Is it true that "Almost all modern software that supports Unicode, > especially software that supports it well, does so using 16-bit Unicode > internally: Windows and all Microsoft applications (Office etc.), Java, > MacOS X and its applications, ECMAScript/JavaScript/JScript, Python, > Rosette, ICU, C#, XML DOM, KDE/Qt, Opera, Mozilla/NetScape, > OpenOffice/StarOffice, ... "?
These decisions seem designed mostly to ease compatibility with Microsoft's OS. The Asian-language argument for UTF-16 seems mostly vacuous, and even if it were true it would be the lone redeeming feature of UTF-16. (I found it outrageously laughable that the unicode spec dwells on that for several paragraphs.) UTF-16 is a miscarriage of design strung together to justify the mistakes made by those whe assumed "16 bits is enough". Forward looking applications use UTF-8 internally. Even microsoft cant scourge themselves of it completely: C++, text files, html, XML, email, etc are probably never going to be in native utf-16. -- Linux-UTF8: i18n of Linux on all levels Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-utf8/
