Time we switched to unicode? (was Explanation of this Python language feature?)

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Tue, 25 Mar 2014 08:35:02 -0400, Roy Smith wrote:

> In article <281c8ce1-4f03-4e93-b5cd-d45b85e89e7e at googlegroups.com>,
>  Rustom Mody <rustompmody at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> And Chris is right in (rephrasing) we may have unicode-happy OSes and
>> languages. We cant reasonably have unicode-happy keyboards. [What would
>> a million-key keyboard look like? Lets leave the cost aside...]
> 
> In a true unicode environment, the input device may be nothing like our
> current keyboards.

I doubt it. I expect that they will be based on our current keyboards.


> Star Trek has been amazingly accurate about it's predictions of the
> future.

O_o


> Doors that open automatically as you approach them are now
> routine.  

It's very easy to predict things that have already happened. Star Trek 
was created in 1966. The electric automatic door was invented in 1954 by 
Lew Hewitt and Dee Horton. (Well, actually the first automatic door was 
built in the 1st century CE by Heron of Alexandra, but that's another 
story.)

Electric doors may be common in some commercial premises, such as 
shopping centres and some office buildings, but I wouldn't call them 
routine.


> One thing they messed up on was mobile devices; they assumed
> tricorders and communicators would be separate devices, when in reality
> our phones now perform both functions.  Today's 3-d printers are giving
> replicators a run for their money.

Today's 3D printers are to replicators what a stone axe is to a full wood-
working tool shop.


>  Some people still get bent out of
> shape when a white man kisses a black woman, but we're working on that.
> 
> When's the last time you saw somebody typing commands to a computer on
> Star Trek?

1986, when I last saw Star Trek IV.

The Star Trek universe also predicts that money will be obsolete. How's 
that prediction working out?




-- 
Steven D'Aprano
http://import-that.dreamwidth.org/