An assessment of the Unicode standard

[r]

On Aug 29, 11:05 pm, Anny Mous <b1540... at tyldd.com> wrote:
(snip)
> How do we distinguish resume from résumé without accents?

This is another quirk of some languages that befuddles me. What is
with the ongoing language pronunciation tutorial some languages have
turned into -- French is a good example (*puke*). Do you *really* need
those squiggly lines and cues above letters so you won't forget how to
pronounce a word. Pure ridiculousness!

> Even when we succeed in banning all languages that can't be written using
> A-Z, what do we do about the vast number of legacy documents? How do we
> write about obsolete English letters like Ð and Þ without Unicode?

Who gives a fig about obsolete languages, thank god they are dead and
let's move on!!


> > Some may say well how can we possibly force countries/people to speak/
> > code in a uniform manner? Well that's simple, you just stop supporting
> > their cryptic languages by dumping Unicode and returning to the
> > beautiful ASCII and adopting English as the universal world language.
> > Why English? Well because it is so widely spoken.
>
> World population: 6.7 billion
>
> Number of native Mandarin speakers: 873 million
> Number of native Hindi speakers: 370 million
> Number of native Spanish speakers: 350 million
> Number of native English speakers: 340 million
>
> Total number of Mandarin speakers: 1051 million
> Total number of English speakers: 510 million
>
> http://www.vistawide.com/languages/top_30_languages.htm

I was actually referring to countries where the majority of people
*actually* know what a computer is and how to use it... If there
culture has not caught up with western technology yet they are doomed
to the fate of native American Indians.

> Whichever way you look at it, we should all convert to Mandarin, not
> English. Looks like we still need Unicode.

see my last comment

(snip entertaining assumptions)

> Yes, because language differences have utterly destroyed us so many times in
> the past!
>
> Have you thought about the difference between China, with one culture and
> one spoken language for thousands of years, and Europe, with dozens of
> competing cultures, competing governments, and alternate languages for just
> as long? If multiple languages are so harmful, why was it the British,
> French, Japanese, Russians, Germans, Italians, Austrians, Hungarians and
> Americans who were occupying China during the Opium Wars and the Boxer
> Rebellion, instead of the other way around?
>
> Strength comes from diversity, not monoculture.

No strength comes from superior firepower. The Chinese culture stop
evolving thousands of years ago. Who invented gun powder? Yes the
Chinese and all they could do with it was create fireworks. Europeans
took gun powered and started a revolution that changes the world
forever -- for better and for worse, but that is how advancements
work. It wasn't until western influence came along and finally nudged
china into the 21st century. Europeans seek out technology and aren't
dragged down by an antiquated culture which is good for innovation. If
China with it's huge population thought like a European, they would
rule the earth for 10,000 years.