Text 3559, 76 rader
Skriven 2009-10-24 01:46:40 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
   Kommentar till text 3557 av Maurice Kinal (1:261/38)
Ärende: getting better
======================
Hello Maurice,

On Friday October 23 2009 10:55, you wrote to me:

 >> The International Organisation for Standardisation. AKA ISO.
 >> Unicode is also known as ISO 10646.

 MK> Now you're getting somewhere.  However I was under the impression that
 MK> only part of Unicode corresponds with that particular standard.

Possibly. Standards evolve and so it can happen that that those who develop the
standard are a bit ahead of those who officially recognise and document it. I
do not think that detail is relevant to the matter at hand.

 >> The ISO is a recognised body for setting standards,

 MK> Noted.

Good.

 >> Rejecting something just because it is also adopted by Microsoft is
 >> silly.

 MK> Your words not mine.  I used 'suspicious' and I stand by it.  I am
 MK> just as suspicious of any simular claims from Sun, IBM, or anyone else
 MK> of that nature.  I believe it is prudent to be suspicious.

Microsoft nor IBM or Sun make any claims in this respect. They merely follow
the standard set by the Unicode consortium and the ISO. If you find that
suspicious, .. well that is your ... eh.. eh.. problem?

 >> Sometimes even Microsoft does things right you know

 MK> Usually it is a particular programmer and a particular app.  Overall
 MK> as a company I'd disagree and have since Windows 2.0.  As an OS I
 MK> haven't noticed any improvement since then despite the hardware
 MK> surrounding it making quantum leaps forward.  I still fail to grasp
 MK> why anyone finds it useful ... other than for crashing their games
 MK> that is.  :-)

You obviously aren't a fan of Microsoft. So be it. This is not the place for an
OS war.

 MK> However if you've and others have been getting away with UTF-8 within
 MK> Fido it is only because it the existing software in play is ASCII
 MK> based and 0-127 of UTF-8 matches. Just adopting a kludge won't solve
 MK> anything since it never comes into play and lo and behold it magically
 MK> 'works' and all that is accomplished is to create additional bloat.
 MK> Absolutely nothing to do with the software being compliant to a
 MK> proposed standard.

Exactly the same argumentation was used some 15+ years ago against the CHRS
kludge that introduced the use of character sets other than the original IBM
character set or plain ASCII for that matter. Yet by now it IS a de facto
standard and character sets other than the original IBM set are in widespread
use in FidoNet. CP866 is at the top of the list. Latin-1 (ISO-8859-1) and
KOI8-R come next.

 MK> I also doubt that the kludge is needed for an editor that already can
 MK> handle UTF-8.  How does one propose to enforce such a kludge and is it
 MK> REALLY necessary?

No one enforces anything. What happens is that a proposal is written by
someone. Then the developers may pick it up and add it to their software. If
that software is then used by enough Fidonet participants it becomes "current
practise" and is documented by the FTSC as a standard.

And yes, as long as UTF-8 is not the default, the kludge is needed because
autodetection of the character set with so many around is unreliable if not
unfeasable.


Cheers, Michiel

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