Re: Wasteful internationalization

Markus E Leypold wrote:

Look, Björn -- I think this wall uncalled for. _I_ remember times when
it was considered part of the netiquette to use only 7-Bit-ASCII,
because you couldn't expect everybody haiving the latest and greatest
software. There were various Unices in various states of coming to
grips with non-7-bit characters and there was VMS and not all software
was readily available for all systems.

That's a good approach. For a while, not forever. You can avoid using a new
standard as long as it's brand new, but what's the point in defining new
standards if nobody ever starts using the new capabilities?

The protocols are carefully designed to be as backwards compatible as
possible. Non-MIME messages are assumed to be in ASCII, precisely to let
Larry keep posting with his old newsreader. Well-behaved email and Usenet
programs also use the simplest encoding possible for each message – ASCII
when ASCII is enough, and UTF-8 only when Latin-1 won't do – to be
backwards compatible whenever possible, and they use UTF-8 instead of UCS-2
or UCS-4 so that Larry will at least be able to read most of the message.
This way, users with old software can still participate within the limits
of their software, and the rest of us can use the characters we need when
we need them.

And I would like to add: That really hasn't changed in principle. 5
years ago I could read almost every mail I got. Then mails with
8859-15 became more common (Euro sign) and I couldn't read them. And
then UTF-8 mails abounded. Without me doing anything wrong, my news
reader slowly decayed into obsolescence.

I hate it when that happens.

I hate it too, but the problem was with the old software, not with the new
one. MIME and Unicode solved some very real problems caused by lack of
forethought in the past, and the only long-term solution was to upgrade the
software.

Tell you what: VT102. It's a hardware problem, not a software one. You
seem to be missing some historical perspective :-).

"Emulator" sounds like software to me, but that's irrelevant anyway. Larry
could get adequate software *and* hardware if he wanted to. It's not like
it would be expensive. Hardware capable of running MIME-aware newsreaders
can be found in dumps. He doesn't want to, and that's fine with me, but
then he must accept that his equipment lacks some modern features.

Did he force you? Or did he just inform you that he can't see the 'Pi'
and probably won't see it ever. You can ignore his information, I
think.

Of course he has no means to literally force me. He's trying to *persuade*
everyone to go back to ASCII. It was not just information. He stated
explicitly that everyone should use ASCII.

His first post looked like he didn't know why he didn't see the right
character, and I tried to be helpful, not remembering that it was Larry who
complained to a newbie who used UTF-8 in May last year. I'll probably
ignore him next time he complains to me, but I may intervene if he attacks
newbies again.

BTW: I have Gnus on a rather current Linux system. I couldn't see the
Pi, too. This happens sometimes and do you know what: I don't read
posts I can't display or decode (same with web pages).

I do the same. I don't have Flash installed (because I can't stand web pages
full of animated ads). There have been a few Flash applets that were
important enough that I installed the Flash plugin, watched the applet and
removed Flash again, but when people send out links to funny clips on
Youtube and the like I usually don't watch them, thinking they probably
aren't worth all the trouble. But I don't complain about it! Especially not
i public forums. I have made my choice and I accept the consequences. I
don't try to make people stop posting Flash clips just because watching
them is too much trouble for me.

--
Björn Persson PGP key A88682FD
omb jor ers @sv ge.
r o.b n.p son eri nu
.

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