Subject: Re: Wide character implementation
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net>
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2002 07:00:47 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.scheme
Message-ID: <3225942059872001@naggum.net>

* Thomas Bushnell, BSG
| So a secondary question; if one is designing a new Common Lisp or Scheme
| system, and one is not encumbered by any requirements about being
| consistent with existing code, existing operating systems, or existing
| communications protocols and interchange formats: that is, if one gets to
| design the world over again:

  If we could design the world over again, the _first_ ting I would want to
  do is making "capital letter" a combining modifier instead of doubling
  the size of the code space required to handle it.  Not only would this be
  such a strong signal to people not to use case-sensitive identifiers in
  programming languages, we would have a far better time as programmers.
  E.g., considering the enormous amount of information Braille can squeeze
  into only 6 bits, with codes for many common words and codes to switch to
  and from digits and to capital letters, the limitations of their code
  space has effectively been very beneficial.

///
-- 
  In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none.
  In a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.