On 11/24/17 12:35 PM, Skip Montanaro wrote:
I find it it interesting that the primary reason to want to limit the
character set to ASCII is people thinking that it would make it hard for
*them* to read/use the code, but no thought about how much harder it makes
it on the original author/team to write code that is easily understood by
THEM.
I think you misunderstood my post. For that I apologize that I wasn't clear.
I was only pointing out that there is a ton of inertia based on the
long dominance of ASCII (and before that EBCDIC) and its downstream
effects on computer entry systems. I know that there are likely
semi-reasonable ways to enter accented characters on my keyboard, but
they are unknown to me, and will likely be different on the different
systems I use, so I've not bothered to learn any of them.
One thing which occurred to me as I was typing my earlier message, but
which I failed to include... I wonder if when you go to Dell (for
example) to configure a computer, you can easily specify a non-ASCII
keyboard for a machine destined for delivery to the US. Maybe it's
trivial, but maybe it's just enough more difficult (slows delivery,
costs a few bucks more, which of the alternatives should you choose?)
that people think, "Ah hell, might as well just go with the ASCII
keyboard."
I'm clearly in the old fart camp at this point. Perhaps American
software engineers half my age aren't afflicted by my career-long
biases.
Skip
I doubt I am 1/2 your age (are you 120 yet?). The keyboard I normally
use would be very hard to use for foreign characters, but I do
understand that if I wanted to, I could easily get a keyboard designed
for use in any other language. Some would take some training to learn
how to use (like a Chinese keyboard).
The fact that I was pointing out is that the fact that people are
arguing that because *THEY* would have difficulty working with a code
base (that they likely would never actually need access to) is a good
reason from preventing others, who already HAVE the needed
hardware/training from being able to make the code more readable to them.
As far as the basic ability to enter arbitrary characters, most OSes
have a generic entry method (like windows ALT-numbers method) and I
think most have a character selector app to add arbitrary characters to
the clipboard. Yes, this may not be very convenient for a lot of use but
is possible. Also, it is generally possible to select an alternate
keyboard map for your keyboard to enter other characters, you then just
need to know (or have printed) the new mapping of the keyboard. It helps
if you do this to have learned the new mapping, and how to touch type on
that keyboard. Generally you can also get Keyboard Stickers to place on
your keyboard if you are a hunt and pecker typist.
--
Richard Damon
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