what's so difficult about namespace?

[Lew]

jon.harrop.ms.sharp at gmail.com wrote:
> It's mostly a problem of culture.
> 
> If you look, for example, at chinese [sic] names, the name space is not that
> much important:
> "Xee Laa" only takes this space:
> "       "
>  ^^^^^^^

Chinese names are presumably not spelled with Roman letters in Chinese, so 
this really says nothing about how Chinese "wastes" space.

> Instead, if you take a typical english [sic] name, say, "Abraham Lincoln",
> you instantly recognize the waste of space used by this name:
> "              "
>  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

How is that wasted?  "Abraham Lincoln" is a longer name.  Only one character 
is silent.  In the transliteration you show for a Chinese name, two characters 
are wasted.

> Concluding: I think that americans [sic] are very good at wasting name
> spaces, whereas chinese [sic] ones seem less name space hungry.
> 
> Sure, you could make some other example, proving for the contrary, but
> I think the one cited above already suffices.

Your example shows the opposite of what you claim.  By your own example, the 
Chinese transliteration "wasted" twice as much space as the American one.

-- 
Lew