An assessment of the Unicode standard

[steve]

I'm a lurker on this list and am here more to learn rather than teach and
although better sense tells me not to feed the troll -- I'll bite.

Mainly because, r, unlike XL does seem to offer help every one in a while.

So, ...

On 08/31/2009 03:58 AM, r wrote:
> On Aug 30, 2:05 pm, Paul Boddie<p... at boddie.org.uk>  wrote: (snip)
>> You don't care which language it is as long as it's the one you use. That's
>> what this sounds like, layered on top of what you've already written (and
>> what you write below).
>
> I said it before and i will say it again. I DON"T CARE WHAT LANGUAGE WE USE
> AS LONG AS IT IS A MODERN LANGUAGE FOUNDED ON IDEALS OF SIMPLICITY!!!!
>
I think you are confusing simplicity with uniformity.

Uniformity is not always good. Sure standardizing on units of measure and 
airline codes is good, but expecting everyone to speak one language is akin to 
expecting everyone to wear one type of clothing or expecting everyone to drive 
just one type of automobile -- those kind of rules works well in a small sets 
where doing so fulfills a purpose (in the army, hospitals or taxi service, for 
instance).

The problems associated with enforcing uniformity within larger sets are often 
_less_ _simple_ than finding _solutions_ to deal with _complexity_ (your 
misplaced philosophical rhetoric about how one-world-one-language-would-usher 
in-a-golden-age aside -- /that/ you should take up with any person of science 
and be ready to be laughed at).

To put it another way, it is better to create data structures to deal with 
variable length names rather than mandating that everybody has names < 30 chars.

If you fail to understand how that applies to unicode, you sadly will have 
trouble understanding the existence of not only unicode, but also of TCP/IP, 
timezones, xml and the whole concept of Interfaces.

[...snip...]
> Paul: civilizations rise and fall, this is beyond our control. Every great
> power will utter fail at some point. Some die out like a slow burning candle,
> others go quickly and painfully from defeating blows in war time. This is an
> eventuality you must face friend. This whole save the whales BS is really
> getting on my nerves! Stop trying to play God Paul, it is not your decision
> when and where the blade shall fall.
>
> When a people stop evolving and no longer have anything productive to give to
> evolution, evolution stamps them out. If the Indians had developed gun power
> and industrialized America they might be running more than merely a casino.
> Oh No! Was that out of line, you will probably think so.
>
> Stay in know and you shall endure...
>
This might come as a bit of shock for you, but evolution awards those who are
capable of adapting to complexity rather then those who expect things to be
uniform. You, dear friend, and those who yearn for uniformity are the ones on 
the path to extinction.

cheers,
- steve
-- 
random non tech spiel: http://lonetwin.blogspot.com/
tech randomness: http://lonehacks.blogspot.com/
what i'm stumbling into: http://lonetwin.stumbleupon.com/