Solving the UTF-8 problem
Doug Ewell
dewell at roadrunner.com
Tue Jul 3 08:00:01 CEST 2007
Stephane Bortzmeyer <bortzmeyer at nic dot fr> wrote:
>> 3. UTF-8 can't be read on some, espcially older, computer systems (Frank
>> Ellermann, months ago, and CE Whitehead).
>
> So, I basically agree that UTF-8 for the registry is better but I do not
> want to see bold sentences like "Anyone but Frank Ellermann can run a full
> UTF-8 environment by now". This is not true.
You're correct. I restated three objections to converting the Registry to
UTF-8, and tried to show why they don't outweigh the advantages of
converting. All three are, in fact, true:
1. UTF-8 doesn't play well with e-mail.
2. Converting will break processors that expect only ASCII.
3. Some computers can't display UTF-8.
But we can work out the e-mail problem, and the breakage to processors is no
worse than adding new fields (nor are there that many fully-conformant
processors to be fixed). And the display problem is really not as much of a
showstopper as it is being portrayed. People are saying that the hex
escapes are a display problem too, and adding "Arua" and "Aruá (Arua)"
to the Registry is going to confuse a LOT of people, no matter how many
comments we add.
--
Doug Ewell * Fullerton, California, USA * RFC 4645 * UTN #14
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
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