Re: [AD] Proposal to kill non-UTF-8 support

["Colin Alston" <diskbox@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Educate me..

What exactly is Unicode?
Looks to me like it would be nice if everyone spoke one language. Earthish
or something like that ;). Codepages are something to do with keyboard
layout or language or something isnt it?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Shawn Hargreaves" <shargreaves@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: "'Peter Wang'" <tjaden@xxxxxxxxxx>; <conductors@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, January 06, 2002 3:19 PM
Subject: RE: [AD] Proposal to kill non-UTF-8 support


> Peter Wang writes:
> >> Codepages are such a horrible ugly mess.
> >> Maybe the best solution is just to bury your head in the sand
> >> and pretend they don't exist?
> >
> > I know you're being sarcastic
>
> Sort of half-serious. Practicality and elegance seem to be in
> direct opposition here...
>
> A pure Unicode system (or UTF8, which is just a different way to
> represent the same thing) is clearly the Right Thing for any
> type of software. The only problem is when you have to talk to
> the outside world, which doesn't speak Unicode. A case could
> be made that this is the fault of whatever stupid software is
> providing text in locale-specific codepages, and that the other
> software is the bit that needs fixing.
>
> Windows already has Unicode versions of the entire API, and
> newer glibcs are getting there.
>
>
> --
> Shawn
>