Elliotte Rusty Harold <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> There are a number of possibilities that don't break backwards
> compatibility (making trans-BMP characters require two chars rather
> than one, defining a new wchar primitive data type that is 4-bytes
> long as well as the old 2-byte char type, etc.) but they all make the
> language a lot less clean and obvious. In fact, they all more or less
> make Java feel like C and C++ feel when working with Unicode: like
> something new has been bolted on after the fact, and it doesn't
> really fit the old design.
This is one of the great difficulties in creating a "clean" design:
making it flexible enough so that it remains clean even in the face of
unexpected changes (like Unicode requiring more than 16 bits).
But was it really unexpected? I wonder when the Java specification was
written -- specifically, was it before or after Unicode and JTC1/SC2/WG2
began talking openly about moving beyond 16 bits?
-Doug Ewell
Fullerton, California
