Jim Allan wrote: > H.S. wrote: > >> Yes, but only if the unicode (utf8 or utf16 or others) text support has >> been polished and verified that it works in the OSes in their languages. > > I would say that goes without saying. But people were computing in those > languages, except for Gujarati, long before Unicode.
(1) Well, that case was covered when I said if those have been verified to work in which I don't see anything wrong in using that language, except when the user of that language is oblivious to the special characters to avoid. See, same reasoning holds here too. >> Having said this, the reality is the operating systems have been >> predominantly ascii based. Their source code is predominantly ascii >> based (if you are a programmer, how many programs have you made which >> support unicode?). It is just not realistic to simply ignore that. > > Well, I suppose you could claim that even Unicode systems are ASCII Given the context, I meant the ASCII based systems which do not understand non-ascii characters. > based, since Unicode contains all the ASCII characters in the right > order. But in fact even the earlier PCs already contained a full 512 > characters in each character set. So did the earliest Macs. Pure 7-bit > ASCII was already effectively dead by then, the Web killed it off almost > entirely. > > That source code for traditional computer languages is traditionally > ASCII based is true. But what has that to do with file names that don’t > contain computer code in those languages? It is not the source code, as I said earlier that problem was the programmer not entertaining unicode support. The source code is only as smart as the programmer. > >> Secondly, for a person who has *absolutely* no idea about any English >> characters and want to input strings to the operating system safely, I >> would suggest s/he not use any OS which is predominantly ASCII based. It >> would be better to use an OS created in his/her language. > > So they aren’t supposed to use Linux, Macintosh, Windows, or Unix > Solaris or Novell Unix? What should they use? Even in Japan those are > the predominant operating systems? What should they use instead in Iraq > and Iran? I don't see why you are writing this. See (1) above. If they can use any system which supports their language, that's great, but they *still* need to be familiar with the singularities in its use. That is the point I am trying to make: whatever language you use, you still need to get basic education on a computer's usage. This is quite independent of the language of use. > >> In my own view, unicode support is coming along quite well. But it is >> just not there yet so that I can recommend a Gujrati user to change >> his/her locale and simply forget all English s/he knows. Some European >> languages are much better supported, though. > > I never recommended this. That was my extreme example of an unusual But this is a very real example. There is a huge population of Gujrati speaking people in Indian (and some in Pakistan). To *you* it may sound extreme, but to a Gujrati user, who doesn't have any clue about the underlying system, it is not an extreme example. He would be baffled when the system behaves unexpected (to him) while trying to use Gurjrati characters in filenames. Which brings me back to my original point: if the user were already aware of this, he would use suitable precautions, perhaps mixing English with Gujrati. But the user *has to* know basics of the machine he is using, no matter what language he is trying to use. > script. However the language has a Wikipedia outlet at > <http://gu.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E0%AA%AE%E0%AB%81%E0%AA%96%E0%AA%AA%E0%AB%83%E0%AA%B7%E0%AB%8D%E0%AA%A0> I told you, there is a huge number of Gurjartis in this world. > and several newspapers on line. Obviously the language does work under > Unicode well enough to allow this. If you suggest that those using You are missing the point. Out of all those online document, please point to even a single one which has Gujrati characters in its filename. I don't think you will find any. Why? Because the web page creator was aware of the limitations of the system and knew Gujrati characters will not be entertained in the URLS yet. This is not surprising. This is just validating my original point -- the content is Gujrati, the filename isn't, because the creator was ware of the systems limitations unlike average joe ignorant user. > Gujarati should create files (but not file names) in the Gujarati > language, I would say that was bad advice. The problem characters are > not Gujarati characters at all, but some of the basic ASCII characters. But this knowledge is not known a priori. A new user should find out and verify which ones are okay. This is true in general. > > People who wish to do so can create Gujarati files with Gujarati file > names right now, without difficulty, and transfer them to another > Unicode system without a problem, as long as they avoid those same ASCII > characters in the names. Even, then, they will probably have no problems > if they stick to Linux. But the original problem was raising the point of sharing a document. In any case, I thin I have beaten this horse to death: the user should first know the limitations of the systems input, irrespective of the input language. > I never said that. No-one here has said that. But it is not wishful > thinking to point out that a large number of minority languages have > their own websites these days and that hardly anyone is having any > problems with such characters as “þ” and “æ” and “ŵ”. You are equating websites to their content and ignoring their URL. Note that their URL is still only those limited set of ascii characters! > That’s all. But in fact a file name like “$1.00.txt” will work fine on > almost any system today (whether you include the quotes or don’t include > them). Sure, but in a computer network system, once cannot be certain that the $ will not cause any problem. I recall a few years ago I was having trouble backing up a Windows machine when MS Office created temp. files with $ in their names. > > I agree. And it is a reasonably good suggestion to generally avoid > common ASCII symbol/punctuation characters as these are the characters > among which the problem characters are to be found. Yup, but this knowledge comes when a user actually wants to get this. Just switching on a computer and using "powerpoint" doesn't make one computer literate (boy, am I picking on powerpoint today!). Anyhow, looks like I am way OT on this mailing list :) Regards. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
