Epic Unicode Fail



  • Did you hear about the programmer who was an expert at Unicode?

    Ĥέ ₱₩ńèď țħē łėėț ńőőß.



  • Looks like someone just found the Character Map in Windows.



  • I was expecting someone who'd just found Slashdot.



  • @pjt33 said:

    I was expecting someone who'd just found Slashdot.

    Is Slashdot anti-Unicode?

    If so, I have a whole new respect for them.



  • @bridget99 said:

    @pjt33 said:
    I was expecting someone who'd just found Slashdot.

    Is Slashdot anti-Unicode?

    If so, I have a whole new respect for them.

    Not on purpose, it just has developers too fucking lazy to fix its unicode errors.



  • @bridget99 said:

    @pjt33 said:
    I was expecting someone who'd just found Slashdot.

    Is Slashdot anti-Unicode?

    If so, I have a whole new respect for them.


    And what do you propose as an alternative? Or are you one of those guys who think that the world ends beyond the US borders?



  • @bridget99 said:

    Ɗī̴ď ỵøù ẖė̍åȑ aͩḅöů̲ť ṯȟẻ pṙɵ̣ģȓâ͈ͭmͫȩŕ ẅ͉ḥŏ ŵȧʂ ȁñ ḛͯ̿ṗěrț àȶ Ûɳiċōȡɇ? Ĥέ ₱₩ńèď țħē łėėț ńőőß.
    FTFY. HTH. HAND.

    Lőɍēṃ ȋṗṡů͓ṃ ďòɭỏŗ ȿiṭ̘͋ ǎɱēͭ, ͨöṉśèţ͡ẽͭṵ̇ŗ śäḓįṕśčǐṅǧ ęḽɨẗŕ̑, şeḓ ḑíãṁ ǹ͞œṅu̎ͤmẙ ȅ̜ͥɾḿőḍ ͭḙṁƥǒŗ îƞͮiḓűṇƭ́ ṵt ɭâƀ̵̽͜ȍŗē e̺ͪṯ ḓöløŕɇ ṃḁǵǹȃ àľỉqưỹāḿ ĕ̌ṛ̙äƫ, șeƌ͞ ƌ͋ḭâṃ voƚũƥŧȕ̓ạ. Äṫ ʋȅɽọ e̝ôś ẽṭ ąĉcúsͣͫ̆ͧ èṱ ĵ̤ũͩștó dṵø ƌ̉oĺͩŏɍěṡ ět ȇa ṟēḃʉͫ. Sʈ͈êŧ ȼľīţā ķàśḑ ğṵḅɇṟĝɼͤņ, ṋȏ şɇā t̑ảǩìṁȁẗȃ ȿaṇčẗṵŝ ȅṣȶ Ƚȯɍeḿ įpṡüṁ ḑȏɬỏȑ şịŧ àɱĕṱ. Ƚöȑẹɱ ȋ̄ṕṡūm ḓ̜oļǫɾ ȿǐ̿ẗ ậḿe̾ŧ, ƈɵńšêṯḛƭũͬ ȿȃḏ͔̈ɨṕśćíńḡ ȇȴïțŕ̡, ṣḙď ḑ̯ǐáṁ̺ ńͅȍƞʉͬṁɏ̠ ɇ̶ĩrḿòḍ ṭëṃƥȏɼ iṅvíďṳƞt ȕț ḻȧḃôrͯɇ êṫ ḑøłȯŗȇ ɱàǵɲâ ǡľĭ̲ɋʉƴäṃ ͤráẗ, ʂēđ ȡĩáḿ vóḽűṕȶūä. Âƫ vēɍͦ éōṣ ęƫ āćċûŝãṃ ȅͭ ĵŭȿťo ɖûóͫ ḋòɬoȑẹș ȅť ȩä̠ ɼȩḃȗ͔ṁ. Sťẻ͕ȶ ȼƚͥŧă͎ ƙạşd ǥ̥ûbẻṛgŕēɳ, ṅơ š͘ẹ͛â ȶãǩ̌ỉ͚ͫǎṯ͘a šąñċtṳṣ éșƭ Lǫɍẻm ìƥṡủḿ ḋơ̹loŕ šǐţ ẚͫeṭ. Lòṟě͑ṁ íƥșù̆m ḋơḷŏř ṡɨṭ ȧṃɇṯ, ɕòņşẻṭĕ̪ṭůŕ͎ ȿạͩͥṗšɕɨƞ͙ǥ ḛḻīṭɼ, ṡɇḑ ɗíâḿ ṅȯȵūṁÿ ȩȉͬṁòḑ ṯͤṃƥöɍ ȉṉṽḭdưɲʈ ǔẗ͗ ḷǎ̕bọ̠ṙê ĕ̏ṫ ḑœɫȯͬe ͫͣgñà ạłĩɋŭỷảṁ êřảt, śêɖ̙ ɗĭ̓ăɱ ṽͦɭű̻ƥṫ̍ʉą. Âṯ ʋḙŕǒ ȩȏṡ ẹṯ ȁċ̮ƈúṣạḿ ȇt jͧṣẗø ɗŭǫ ɖ́óļȏȓȩȿ êȶ ěă ŗé̆ƀûḿ. S̠ͭëʈ čɫíţạ ƙàşɖ ɠùƀęṙġɍēń, ṋ̻o šẻä ṫẚḵĭmḁ̈́ṯä säńƈțùṣ ḛșŧ Lȏřͤͫ ḭpsǔͫ ḓỏͩȴoɼ ŝǐṫ åmȇť.

    Dͧïs ąůƫê̴m ʋ͗ẻĺ ëṵͨm įɾị̪ůŗĕ ḍ̌ͫŏľóͬ ǐn ẖɇṅđřeͤ̚ṛⁱť ɨņ ṽûļpǔṱâƭȅ͜ ʋḙľ͖ȉť ēşṣê mǫĺ̀ḙ̩ṣͭîê ĉɵňšêɋüāț, ͮͣēƚ ȉļĺ̫ùͫ đœḻor̴ě ḛͧ ḟêŭǥȉȧṭ ṅṷ̩lḽá fẚƈⁱľǐṡiŝ ȃƭ vḛṙö ë̀ȑͭøş ẽṯ àȼçṷɱṣãn ɇʈ îųśŧȍ öɖīỏ ḑįģñḭsṣỉm ʠũȉ ƃl̼ằṉḑ̣íʈ ṗɼȃēʂęṇť l͚ūpṯąțǔɱ źʐŗͥɫ ḍ͂èḻ̒è͋ņⁱṭ ãṷǥūè đṳĩṡ ɗõlȏɼ̎ė ṭȇ fēùģåɨţ ṉ̌ṷłľa ḟȁçįḻ̆ịsī. Ƚõɾėɱ îƥ̉ŝȕͫ̆ͪ ḓ̎øȴōɼ͎̔ ṣȉť ăṃͤŧ̿, ċǒȵšēcƫḙtụẽȑ ẚđɨṗǐʂͨȋƞḡ ȅƚị̀ẗ, ṡèď ȡîȧɱ ȵǒ̍ɳủͫmmȳ ȵͥḃḫ ẻụȋşṃȏḏ ͭǐňƈiḏͩụṉ̸̳ƫ ǔṯ lḁőɽẻẹṫ ȡȍlǫȑḙ mâğǹͣ álîɋűąṁ ḛřàẗ ʋøƚủṫṗȧṭ.

    Úȶ ẅịʂĭ ĕɲỉṁ ả̟ƌ ṁĭṉīṃ vêǹɨȃ̎ṃ, ɋṳįͮs ṅœṡŧṛ̔uď ęxẹřćɨ tȧtỉőń ṳ͈̽ȴɬäḿ̎ćǒȓƥẽŗ ṣưşcǐṗͥǐȶ ɫõḇőɍƫȋ̮̲ṡ ñịšḻ ȕẗ áḽíɋú̶ĩp ȩx eã ċóṃɱòđŏ ƈǫɳšeqūͣͭ. Dűíŝ ḁṷţɇm̭ ͮȇɫ ëͭȕṃ írïuȑę ȡǒɫọȓ îņ ḧenďŗ̋ěŗiť ìṇ ͮúȴpȗẗͣțę ͮēḽĩṱ ẹssę̝̰ mọɫȅșẗ̄î͈ɇ ċóɳṡĕʠůȃt, vȩĺ iŀḻü̾ɱ ͩͦͦḷőɽĕ ȩú ḟẽūḡịͩâṱ ņȕ͋͞ŀɫä ƒǎͨȋl̶ɨ͆šĭṡ ẚ̽ẗ vḛȓó ẹṟɵș ět ȃɕȼűṁŝáņ ȩŧ įûșṫỏ õḍįȏ ƌîǥņīṣsím ɋ̯úȋ̠ ƀɬảɳ͉đĩť ṗͬảêşêɳƭ ḽụṕẗátưṃ ƶżřɨƚ ḏèƚȅ̋ñȋƫ ăúġüë ȡuîͪṡ ḏòḻ̰ͦŗȩ ƫē ƒ͡ȇͧǥąìẗ ṅűɬƚ͛ã ḟͅạƈĭɭǐȿî.

    Ñȁḿ ɭibȅ̳ɍ țéͫṗǫṟ̋ ɕṵṁ ʂöƚủţä̻ ńőḃͥṡ ɇłȩɨƒḙɲɗ ȏṕṯîøṋ ƈɵ̡nğ̹ṵḙ ńĭħḭɬ îɱƥèṙḏͥèͭ ḏỏmiņɠ îḋ ʠǔöƌ ɱͩȧẑȉḿ pŀáƈëṟȧƫ fảͨė͚ṙ ṕͦ͛ʂšĩɱ ḁşʂʉm̶. Lǫȑȇṃ ǐṕṡů̷ɱ ɗôlǒɽ ŝìŧ̈́ ȧ̪̅ͦͫͤƫ, ȼỏñśēćţẹțṷěř ả͈ɗïƥîṣċⁱǹǥ͗ ẹlįt, śeȡͤ dɨâḿ̄ ñ͓õṉụṃṃɏ ɳìbḧ ȇŭȋʂḿỏȡ ẗ̇ịņcī̃ȡúňẗ ǔṭ ḷȧŏ̎ṛēeƫ ɖølǫ̎ͫȑͤ ṁàģṇ̃ȃ ạḽȉʠŭạṃ ėŗảƭ ṽòłųʈṗăȶ. Ʉȶ ŵⁱşĩ ȩņȉṃ ȃ̟đ ṃɨñïṃ ṽẽ̀ṅḭẚṃ, ʠʉĭŝ̄ ñõŝẗȑúͩ ȅẍê͟ɽcỉ ṭãŧĩ̹ơͯƞ ùḻȴȧͫȼørṗẻȓ ŝṷʂͨçȉṕⁱť ɬơḅøȓƫĩş ňȋšḻ üṱ aȴɨqū̯ĩṗ ëͯ͝ eạ çŏḿṃȯḑô ćôɳṣěʠṵäʈ.

    Dṷîṡ ͣųȶͤḿ ͮȩŀ̴ ȇuɱ ͥ̍ṛͥͧṛē ḏōɫòɼ įṇ ḫẻɲȡȓḛřḭṫ ɨṇ ͮŭ͓ļpǔṱąţẹ ṿȇḽįʈ ēȿşêͩ ɱǒɭésṯǐè cǫṋşȩɋṵâʈ, véł̷ ílĺùṃ ͩölõɍë͛ ęṵ ḟē̂ũɠì͠āṫ ɲʉḽ͚ɬâ fáͨḭɭ͑ỉșȉṣ.

    Áṭ ṿȇͬœ éoś ḛ̘ͪṱ ȧcĉũšȃṁ èť͔ jùsťō ͩủø dͨọḽő̟řęṣ ẻṭ ḙḁ ɼ̴ͤḃųͤm͂. Sțeṱ̌ ɕɬⁱṯą ḳãṣɖ ġͧḃéɽgŗẹɲ, ṉø ȿėả̂ ṱàǩịͫḁƭā ṡaɲcțųʂ ėṡƭ Løͬɇ͈͚ṃ įṕšüɱ ȡōĺōr ṡïͭ ȧͫēʈ. Ƚỏřėɱ īpșṵṃ ȡòłô͜ɼ̲ śǐť ͣɱȅƭ̈́, çơṋṡḙʈĕͭṳɾ sāḓïṕscɨṉǵ ēɫį̉̓ͭȑ, šêḋ ɖiäḿ ȵõ͆ȵȗ̼ͫy ẹḭṙɱòɗ̒ ͭëḿṗ͓ȍɾ îńṿͥdủṅt ȗƭ ĺȁḃöɽe ët ḑøłǫṙȇ ḿͣǵňȁ aȴȉqụ̦ẙáṃ èͬảțͮ, ȿĕͨ̒ƌ ďīȃṁ ʋõḻȕpţṳâ. Äƫ ͮẹṟȏ ĕõš ḛt ạc̤ĉʉŝaͫ ȇť ĵȗśṭœ ȡụŏ ɖołȍȓęŝ êṭ èã ɾëḅȗṃ. Sțěť ȼƚǐʈā kâşḍ ḡȕƀêřğȓ̡ęṉ, ɳͦ ṡḙăͫ ƫȁķï̪ͫͨãṫa ṡańćƭṳš ęšƫ Ƚøṛẽṃ ịṕṡűm ƌỏȴͦṟ şⁱƫ ă̳̠ͫͤẗ. Lͦřͤm ⁱpŝưḿ ɗòɬơṟ ṣ̤ȉȶ àṁͭẽẗ, ĉǫɲšḙẗę̥ṱűŕ șądǐṗșčíṉğ ẹŀ̓įṱͬ, Áŧ ͣćͨűșą͐ḿ ăłȉʠūỵaͫ ḓíâṁ ḋíäm dôȴɵŗē ƌơļőɾës ͩṵọ̩ éⁱṙḿòḓ ēɵs eȑat̮, ë͠ṭ ņòȵ̍ưṁẏ͚ śẽḋ ʈȇṃpͦͬ ȅť̵ ḛt ȉṉͯvȋƌ̦uǹť ĵüšṯɵ ĺͣƀȍɼȩ Sṱȇť ĉłỉẗã ȩǎͨ ȅƭ ɠụḇȩɾɠrẽń, ḱaʂͩ ɱăgň͖ǎ ṅȍ ɍèƃủ̀ͫ. ŝ̽ạń̼ɕŧṵŝ ŝeẚ ṡȩȡ ṫâ͜ḳîmåȶǎ ũẗ vę͆řȯ vøŀưṗʈưã. ḛʂṯ Ƚô̷͖ͬěͫ ip͢ṡͧm ḓȏľôɾ ṡįṭ ăṃéŧ. Lȍɽěm ȋƥŝụḿ dͦ͜ľɵṛ šìʈ͎ ǎḿĕȶ, çøȵśẽṱėṭụɍ şẚ̸ḋíṗŝɕ́ǐņģ ḙɫͥŧͬ, šēḓ ḋ̮ĩāɱ ṉ͋ònûṁẙ ȇȉɼḿõɖ ṯèṃṕǫɽ ỉṉ͖vỉ͗duṅť úț ĺaḇõŗɇ ĕţ dỏ͐ɬ̖òɼë ṁ͓̫āģṉă ảƚíɋͧ͝ÿȧɱ ȩŕăť.

    Çońšẽŧẻṫṳ͉r şḁḏȉṗȿčĭɳğ ėɫỉtṟ, ş̙ęḑ ḍĭǎm ńöǹųṁɏ̡͟ ȅĩɾͫȍḑ ͭȩṃƥőř ïɲͮĩ͉ɖűɲʈ ųŧ lā̯ḅọrȇ êƫ ͩöľŏɽͤ ɱảĝǹa åḻȉʠuỵǎɱ ęŕ̻ā̜ẗ, sȅɖ ḏiāͫ ̰ͮȯȴṳṗț̌ůǎ. Áţ ͮěɼo éœȿ è̍ṯ̈́ áƈčȗʂáṁ ēʈ jṳŝṭó důø ď̦̃͢ŏłòřȩș ḙʈ ẽä ṛẹḇǔḿ. Sṱêẗ čƚịƫḁ ķͣșḑ ğͧḇḙͬ̽ǥŕé͋ƞ, ṇœ ṡêạ ẗâ̮ǩȉmąƭã șǎñĉṫʉŝ ēśẗͮ͢ Ƚòɾͤḿ ǐpșúm ƌơ̆ľóɼ ʂͅỉṫ ảṁ̤ẽṭ. Ƚôřėm įpŝṷm dőḻǫɍ ŝìƭ ảͫȇṱ, çŏńʂëẗ͘ḙṫ̮ůɾ šãȡïṕȿɕḭɳɠ éḻỉťŗ, ʂē͢ḑ ḏ́ìāṃ̼ ǹōńṵmƴ ͤîṛͫôƌ ŧēṃƥōṛ īṇͭͮǐɖủɲẗ ủẗ ḷȃḇͦṙȅ ęț ɗọḽǒɾḙ ḿạɠɲȧ ȃḽĩɋǔ͂ỳâ̤ṃ ḛ̋řȧ͔ṫ̬͇, sɇɖ ȡḭåͫ ṽøŀǔṕ̳ͭůā. Àṭ vẹṛͦ ēôš ęţ̙ ȃ̉ɕčͧʂáɱ éţ ǰͧșͅȶǒ ḑ̦ụō đøḷ̹͌ǒɍèś éţ ĕã rẽḅǔɱ. Sţêṭ̶ ͨļiŧȃ ḵāȿȡ ģͧḃêṙğrěṇ, nǫ ṡėå̢ ƭǎḳiɱáțä̶ šȃnčƫús ë̓ṣţ Lǫrě͎ɱ įƥʂüṃ ɗòƚ̀oṛ ṣḭƭ à̘ͫẹẗ. Ƚȏŕ̡ȇm įƥʂṵṃ ḏ̷öĺøŕ śíţ͂ ͣṁẻȶ, ͨọṇṣḛțëţŭř ȿä͙ḏīṗsɕĭņǵ ė̉ɫị̉ƫŗ, śȅɖ ḏịá͖ṁ ňŏñṳṃŷ ɇį̔řͫỏḏ ṱèṁṕŏŗ ĩƞʋĩɖủṇƭ ủt ŀḁɓȍṟẽ ěṭ ͩõŀøɼẹ mảɠǹă ȧľíɋṵỳȧḿ ẽṛ͠ȧʈ, ȿḛɗ ɗɨăͫ ʋȏ̋ƚṳṕȶūẚ. Ãẗ͢ ͮẹ͂ɽœ ĕô̹ș ēṫͤ ȁčȼủśȧͫ ȩƫ ʝʉšŧō đ̬u͉͛ơ ͩȍȴȏř̉eṡ ɇ̥ț êȁ ɾẹƀúɱ. Sṱeṫ ĉḽⁱṯā kâṡ͓ḓ ɠ̣űḇẹřģͬĕṇ, ɳɵ śẻäͤ tͣƙị͉ḿātḁ șāɲĉ̍ṫūš ẹśŧ Ƚõŗͥɇḿ ⁱṕṡʉɱ ḓőĺòͬ ŝ͙ịƫ âṃèṫ.



  • @Rhywden said:

    @bridget99 said:
    @pjt33 said:
    I was expecting someone who'd just found Slashdot.

    Is Slashdot anti-Unicode?

    If so, I have a whole new respect for them.


    And what do you propose as an alternative? Or are you one of those guys who think that the world ends beyond the US borders?

    Even inside the US borders you get people with names like François or Iñigo who have to know HTML entities to get their own names to display correctly in /. posts


  • Garbage Person

    @pjt33 said:

    you get people with names like François or Iñigo who have to know HTML entities to get their own names to display correctly

     François is a name for dicks. Iñigo is a name for badasses.

     @pjt33 said:

    in /. posts

    Thereforce, Iñigo has no fucking business posting there.



  • @Weng said:

    @pjt33 said:

    you get people with names like François or Iñigo who have to know HTML entities to get their own names to display correctly

     François is a name for dicks. Iñigo is a name for badasses.

    My name is François Montoya.  You slightly offended my third cousin twice removed.  Prepare to be mildly inconvenienced.

     



  • @DaveK said:

    My name is François Montoya.  You slightly offended my third cousin twice removed.  Prepare to be mildly inconvenienced.
     

    *scowl*

    *empties a teaspoonful of sugar right on the table*



  • @bridget99 said:

    Did you hear about the programmer who was an expert at Unicode?

    Ĥέ ₱₩ńèď țħē łėėț ńőőß.

    So, wait, you're hoping to look clever in this forum with this joke? Have you taken a look at the tag cloud we have? With first, its tag made of an horribly convoluted combination of combining accents and marks? And second, its Unicode right to left override character in the middle of one of the first tags which means all tags shown after this one get displayed right-to-left? Could you explain how your mildly accented characters could even compete?



  • @ZPedro said:

    Have you taken a look at the tag cloud we have? With first, its tag made of an horribly convoluted combination of combining accents and marks? And second, its Unicode right to left override character in the middle of one of the first tags which means all tags shown after this one get displayed right-to-left?
     

    What?

    You're trying to tell me that people actually look at tag clouds?

    I thought they were just a way for someone with no content to offer to fill up a webpage.



  • @da Doctah said:

    You're trying to tell me that people actually look at tag clouds?


    What, never heard of cloud watching? That one over there looks kinda like a dragon standing on its head.



  • @fatbull said:

    Lоrеm iрsum dоlоr sit аmеt, соnsесtеtuеr аdiрisсing еlit, sеd diаm nоnummу nibh еuismоd tinсidunt ut lаоrееt dоlоrе mаgnа аliquаm еrаt vоlutраt. Ut wisi еnim аd minim vеniаm, quis nоstrud ехеrсi tаtiоn ullаmсоrреr susсiрit lоbоrtis nisl ut аliquiр ех еа соmmоdо соnsеquаt. Duis аutеm vеl еum iriurе dоlоr in hеndrеrit in vulрutаtе vеlit еssе mоlеstiе соnsеquаt, vеl illum dоlоrе еu fеugiаt nullа fасilisis аt vеrо еrоs еt ассumsаn еt iustо оdiо dignissim qui blаndit рrаеsеnt luрtаtum zzril dеlеnit аuguе duis dоlоrе tе fеugаit nullа fасilisi. Nаm libеr tеmроr сum sоlutа nоbis еlеifеnd орtiоn соnguе nihil imреrdiеt dоming id quоd mаzim рlасеrаt fасеr роssim аssum. Турi nоn hаbеnt сlаritаtеm insitаm; еst usus lеgеntis in iis qui fасit еоrum сlаritаtеm. Ιnvеstigаtiоnеs dеmоnstrаvеrunt lесtоrеs lеgеrе mе lius quоd ii lеgunt sаерius. Сlаritаs еst еtiаm рrосеssus dуnаmiсus, qui sеquitur mutаtiоnеm соnsuеtudium lесtоrum. Мirum еst nоtаrе quаm littеrа gоthiса, quаm nunс рutаmus раrum сlаrаm, аntероsuеrit littеrаrum fоrmаs humаnitаtis реr sеасulа quаrtа dесimа еt quintа dесimа. Еоdеm mоdо tурi, qui nunс nоbis vidеntur раrum сlаri, fiаnt sоllеmnеs in futurum.
    FТFΥ.



  • @pjt33 said:

    @Rhywden said:
    @bridget99 said:
    @pjt33 said:
    I was expecting someone who'd just found Slashdot.

    Is Slashdot anti-Unicode?

    If so, I have a whole new respect for them.


    And what do you propose as an alternative? Or are you one of those guys who think that the world ends beyond the US borders?

    Even inside the US borders you get people with names like François or Iñigo who have to know HTML entities to get their own names to display correctly in /. posts




    And even outside US borders, most people speak English. Or, if they don't speak it, they understand that technical products and publications will use it. They know what "Play" and "Stop" and "Drive" mean, for example, and marking the associated buttons with "Tocar", "Parar", and "Conducir" wouldn't help anything.



    In my experience, the people who push Unicode tend to fall into two categories. The first and largest category consists of people who have never left the USA and thus do not realize that, for example, street signs as a rule are in English everywhere (as are fire escape markings, etc.) These people think that if their program doesn't support, say, Haitian Creole, then people in Haiti will not use it (wrong).



    The second group of people who push Unicode are anti-American, and I can sympathize with this, but attempting to undo the fact that English is the language of computing is not a fruitful way to make one's point.



  • Φàók@àÑàÖ¿ûòà@óêûñôä@ñóà@┼┬├─╔├@ôëÆà@╔┬╘@ëòúàòäàäZ



  • @bridget99 said:

    In my experience, the people who push Unicode tend to fall into two categories.

    ... and then there are the sane folks without political chips on their shoulders who just want to accept, store, transmit, and present character data without having to bother with codepage conversions or other legacy junk. These are the far majority. Especially if you include the masses who don't know or care about what a codepage is.


  • 🚽 Regular

    @bridget99 said:

    The second group of people who push Unicode are anti-American, and I can sympathize with this, but attempting to undo the fact that English is the language of computing is not a fruitful way to make one's point.
     

    Even if your legal name is Ölga?



  • @Xyro said:

    @bridget99 said:
    In my experience, the people who push Unicode tend to fall into two categories.

    ... and then there are the sane folks without political chips on their shoulders who just want to accept, store, transmit, and present character data without having to bother with codepage conversions or other legacy junk. These are the far majority. Especially if you include the masses who don't know or care about what a codepage is.

    Agreed. I probably (hopefully) never will work on a multi-lingual application, but I still care that my data is unicode (at least utf8) just because of what happens to "special" characters (say, "smart" quotes) when forced into latin1.



  • @bridget99 said:

     

    I'm amazed at such a rant coming from someone who doesn't speak English. The word is spelt "sympathise" not "sympathize",

    To address one of your other comments - street signs are not in English (or American) everywhere. In my country street signs include ā, a character that is not included in ASCII or Window-1252. In two countries I visited two years ago I regularly saw signs with acute and grave accented letters and even a few with ß letters.

    We should be treating codepages and 8-bit character sets the same way we treat floppy disks and acoustic couplers - junk left on the scrapheap of history.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @havokk said:

    @bridget99 said:

    I'm amazed at such a rant coming from someone who doesn't speak English. The word is spelt "sympathise" not "sympathize",

    You are easily amazed. And wrong.



  • @havokk said:

    I'm amazed at such a rant coming from someone who doesn't speak English. The word is spelt "sympathise" not "sympathize",




    So was there a big stink in your country when Ted Turner started colourising movies?



    Seriously, the use of "S" for voiced consonants just doesn't reflect the way people actually speak English. I understand that the Brits do this, and I can tolerate it when reading (like "gaol" or "polythene") but don't hit me over the head with it. The American spelling just makes more sense (and I've even had Brits tell me so).



    @havokk said:

    To address one of your other comments - street signs are not in English (or American) everywhere. In my country street signs include ā, a character that is not included in ASCII or Window-1252. In two countries I visited two years ago I regularly saw signs with acute and grave accented letters and even a few with ß letters.





    I was referring more to signs that say things like "Stop" than to signs that give street names. But I do hate it when people replace the "ß" with "ss". Like Dominique Strauss-Kahn, for instance... he is really raping the German alphabet when he spells his name like that. ;)



    My real, well-considered opinion is that Unicode is a failure, and not just because people cling to 8-bit (and 7-bit) characters out of habit. Unicode is the classic standard-that's-not-a-standard. Like the standard for hard disks that didn't specify the cable or the plug (SCSI), or the video standard that couldn't decide if it was digital or analog (DVI), or the networking standard that most people only know as a listing of "layers" (OSI), Unicode doesn't so much solve the problem of internationalization as it simply enumerates the problem. As a result, Unicode has exhibited the same, sad history exhibited by each of these "standards", to varying extents: it attracts a core group of wonks who like to tell the rest of us "we're doing it wrong", but it remains largely a curiosity.



    In Unicode's specific case, we are given a fairly comprehensive list of the characters that we might want to represent ("code points") without any guidance about how to represent them. Years later, some of the people who made Unix gave us a fairly palatable concrete implementation (UTF-8) based on the start already made by the Unicode committee, and they were kind enough to play along with the Unicode committee's "we're not stupid, were abstract" charade. Don't fool yourself, though... Unicode is about as useful to real programming as Wasabi mustard is to the practice of gynecology.



    Even if one adopts UTF-8 (a fairly reasonable international character representation) the fundamental wrongheadedness of Unicode will manifest itself in several practical ways, not the least of which is the fact that it doesn't give unambiguous representations of characters. Looking at the rendering of a Unicode string containing "Å", for example, one does not really know whether he is looking at a Scandinavian "rounded-lip" A (also rendered "Aa"), an "Angstrom" sign, or at a simple "A" that has been augmented by a circular modifier character. This creates huge problems in any case where text identifiers are used for computing resources. Suppose Amazon.com decides to register Åmazon.com in Denmark because it looks cute... then someone in Nigeria registers the similar-looking but Angstrom-containing Åmazon.com. The people who hand out addresses, of course, are saying that they would never, ever do such a thing... but does anyone really believe these people are so clever (and in touch with language as it evolves in real time around the globe) to assure it won't happen?



    Beyond all that, I am always skeptical of anything that technologists don't embrace spontaneously. If it's so great, then why the "hard sell"? There are entire subsets of the development field that reject Unicode vehemently (PHP, Drupal, Ruby, etc.) Are these people to be dragged kicking and screaming into the "right" way to do things? Even if the "right" way is an idealistic, academic creation riddled with inefficiencies and ambiguities? I'm more inclined to look upon the standard itself with jaundiced eye; people doing Real Work (tm) deserve the benefit of the doubt.



  • So Unicode is contradictory and illogical so we should write all text in English, right?



  • @MiffTheFox said:

    So Unicode is contradictory and illogical so we should write all text in English, right?

    That is what I think, and it's just an extension of what's done elsewhere in the application of technology. Aviation, academics, and diplomacy, for example, either use English or have clustered around a few "technical" languages. Everyone seems content to accept this regardless of their feelings about Britain, America, Australia, Canada, etcetera. It just makes economic sense for the people developing a technology to avoid getting bogged down in the quagmire that is internationalization. Personally, I'd be glad to deal with GUIs written in French or German had these countries been the first to popularize the GUI. I think this is just something take for granted with technology... everything in the kitchen has a French name, for example, and you don't hear anyone in America moaning because they have to eat Filets-Mignons. The French invented this crap (presumably while the English were gnawing on whole turkey legs) and they get to name it. And as I wrote earlier, it is not the well-traveled who fail to grasp that this is the best way, it is the ignorant, who assume they are being parochial by writing something in English. But if this "something" is a technical document written for international consumption, then English is absolutely the right medium of expression for it, and there's absolutely nothing parochial about that, any more than the fact that Martin Luther wrote Latin made him a Roman Catholic. In fact, it is quite the opposite... by restricting myself to "plain English" I am in fact internationalizing my output in a very real sense. If you do a little research, you'll discover that the idiom "plain English" is actually used in several non-English languages! For example, in some Latin American countries where Spanish is spoken, people actually say things like "dígame en Inglés sencilla." They don't say "dígame en Español sencilla" (even though that's really what they mean) because that wouldn't quite convey the message: tell me using the lowest common denominator of spoken communication. And that's what English is... it's ugly, arbitrary, un-subtle, and hard to sing, but it's the only choice for pedestrian little snippets of text like those on a GUI, sign, or command line.



  • I think I've flip-flopped and now I think Bridget is an excellent troll.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    I think I've flip-flopped and now I think Bridget is an excellent troll.

    Well, I did just write something nice about the French... so, touché.



    Here's something funny to go with the trolling. One time, shortly after 9/11, I was in a gas station bathroom, and someone had defaced the vending machine so that it sold "freedom ticklers."



    Ha! Who says Murricans aren't funny!



  • In Japan stop signs are marked with "止まれ" and are down-pointing triangles (not the octogons you might expect). But English is everywhere. Minor "exception" (if you could call it that) is Things like "Tōkyō" - the line means the "o" is a long sound.



  • @Zemm said:

    In Japan stop signs are marked with "止まれ" and are down-pointing triangles (not the octogons you might expect). But English is everywhere.
     




  • @bridget99 said:

    @pjt33 said:
    Even inside the US borders you get people with names like François or Iñigo who have to know HTML entities to get their own names to display correctly in /. posts

    And even outside US borders, most people speak English. Or, if they don't speak it, they understand that technical products and publications will use it. They know what "Play" and "Stop" and "Drive" mean, for example, and marking the associated buttons with "Tocar", "Parar", and "Conducir" wouldn't help anything.

    In my experience, the people who push Unicode tend to fall into two categories. The first and largest category consists of people who have never left the USA and thus do not realize that, for example, street signs as a rule are in English everywhere (as are fire escape markings, etc.) These people think that if their program doesn't support, say, Haitian Creole, then people in Haiti will not use it (wrong).

    The second group of people who push Unicode are anti-American, and I can sympathize with this, but attempting to undo the fact that English is the language of computing is not a fruitful way to make one's point.

    ROFL. If you'd stopped here I would agree with blakey that you're an excellent troll. Unfortunately I have to lower my rating because you kept on replying. Making three posts in a thread is stretching it a bit; if you have to make more than that then they're clearly not inflammatory enough.



  • @bridget99 said:

    hard to sing

    What!!! English is great for singing, it's got a huge vocabulary to mess with and has so much versatile rhythm! Come on!

    But more to the topic, I think you are completely missing the point of Unicode. This probably explains why you don't care for it. Unicode, along with all its flaws, isn't just for the purpose of spreading technical lingo into local languages, as you seem to imply. Consider this example. Let's say you speak and read only Russian, but you want to learn how to read Japanese, and you figure it's easy to do it online. So you want to find a website that contains both Russian and Japanese characters (and Latin-1, since it's HTML). ...But unless everything is rendered as images, you can't. Not without Unicode. Because (without Unicode) there is no such codepage that contains both Russian and Japanese characters. There is no technical way of showing a page of both character sets without a superset codepage. Unicode is the superset codepage.


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