On 30 Dec 2015, at 16:45, Phillips, Addison wrote: >> A few months ago I asked a class of 140+ first year Computer Science >> programme and Joint programme students - >> >> Who has heard of Unicode? > > I do a similar survey whenever I teach the remedial I18N and Unicode classes > at Amazon. When I ask if software developers *ever* received any formal > education on internationalization or on character encodings, results are > almost universally negative--more like zero percent than 20%. Which is one > reason why we have to spend a significant amount of effort maintaining a > training and education program. > > I suspect I'm not alone in the industry in thinking that educational > establishments could do a better job of preparing developers with at least > the basics of Unicode, character encodings, and internationalization. > > Addison Phillips > Principal SDE, I18N Architect (Amazon) > Chair (W3C I18N WG) > > Internationalization is not a feature. > It is an architecture.
I have been hitting my head against the Academic Brick Wall for years WRT getting IT i18n and Unicode on the curriculum and I am losing. I did teach a final year elective module on IT i18n but a few months ago my University dropped it. I am continually puzzled by the lack of interest University Computer Science departments have in i18n. I appear to be a solitary UK University Computer Science voice when it comes to i18n. …and I think this is where Industry comes in. I think that Industry should be lobbying/pressuring University Computer Science departments to get i18n and Unicode on the curriculum. If industry does not speak up then I cannot see anything changing in Academia. Academia will continue teaching text processing using ASCII only. André Schappo >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Unicode [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Andre >> Schappo >> Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2015 8:16 AM >> To: Unicode Public >> Subject: Unicode in the Curriculum? >> >> A few months ago I asked a class of 140+ first year Computer Science >> programme and Joint programme students - >> >> Who has heard of Unicode? >> >> about 20% of the students raised their hands. >> >> then I quickly followed it with the question >> >> …and who understands Unicode? >> >> Every single student whose hand was raised put it down. >> >> Some of these students were really experienced programmers, having >> programmed from an early age. >> >> Many times over the years I have informally asked students studying in the >> UK (1st, 2nd, 3rd year undergrad, MSc, PhD, home students, international >> students) what they know of Unicode and the vast majority of the time they >> know nothing or next to nothing. >> >> The fundamental problem, as I see it, is that the teaching of Unicode is not >> on the curriculum of Schools, Colleges or Universities in the UK. IMHO, It >> should be! >> >> I do wherever and whenever I can, incorporate Unicode in my teaching e.g. >> recently I gave an introductory lecture on Regular Expressions and in my >> examples I demonstrated, using Unicode text and patterns and not just ASCII. >> >> One such example I used was — /^人+鸭人+$/ >> >> This regex is a reference to Hongkong and the visiting giant floating rubber >> duck😄 >> >> My regex examples also include Emoji and Egyptian Hieroglyphs😄 >> >> Does anyone on this list teach Unicode at an Educational Establishment, >> School, or College or University? >> >> André Schappo >> >
