7 ms·

> Imagine if there were 40 competing and completely > mutually unintelligible versions of html or text encodings There are. > There really should be a one

> Imagine if there were 40 competing and completely > mutually unintelligible versions of html or text encodings There are. > There really should be a one size fits all minimal > serialization protocol There can't be. > just the same way there is a one size fits all network > protocol which moves data around the entire internet There isn't.

trendia 10y ago
I suspect the author hasn't read The Absolute Minimum ... about Unicode [0] (or why there's no such thing as "plain text") [0] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/10/08/the-absolute-minimum-every-software-developer-absolutely-positively-must-know-about-unicode-and-character-sets-no-excuses/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/10/08/the-absolute-minim...
- Dylan16807 10y ago
  Almost all of that is irrelevant. Just use UTF-8.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
bborud 10y ago
You sum it up nicely.
std_throwaway 10y ago
Oh no, there are 40 competing standards. We must make one to unify them all! Oh no, there are 41 competing standards.
- bluejekyll 10y ago
  In fairness they are saying pick one, the earlier one.
  - std_throwaway 10y ago
    He picks it up and adds one tiny modification (changing endianess). Others might need to change another detail making their version incompatible again.
    - fnord123 10y ago
      He describes message pack, afaict. Then acknowledges it with tongue in cheek.
- MegaButts 10y ago
  https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/ edit: scrolling down shows me this has already been posted 3 times in this thread (and will probably be posted a few more times before it's off the front page)
simonh 10y ago
Every now and then I come across someone who thinks data is like water and we should have standardised 'pipes' and components for processing and transporting data and converting it between formats like we have pipes and valves for transporting and purifying water. But data isn't like water, it's like 'chemicals'. You can't have a standard component for processing data the same way you can't have a single components that knows how to process sulphuric acid, crude oil, hydrazine, mercury and molten salt. Data can be binary, delimited, fixed field, lossy, ASCII, Many variations of Unicode, executable, contain attack such as SQL injection, encrypted, have time sensitive delivery requirements, include checksums, require checksums to be applied in the protocol, be meaningless without metadata or other data, and have who knows what other constraints, limitations and requirements. Building a data processing system is not at all like building a water works. It's more like building a chemicals processing plant.
- erikb 10y ago
  All valid. But if you want to avoid a shock, please don't talk to people who transport actual water in actual pipes. I bet you'd be surprised how many different standards of pipes there are and the long list of features that separate one kind of water from the other. ;-)
  - simonh 10y ago
    An excellent point, thank you.
    - kordless 10y ago
      I think the point may include the fact a chemical plant and a water plant are not that much different in comparison to something which is would appear to be a radical shift in approach. It is my opinion that this will be the function AI serves in reality.
      - elcritch 10y ago
        Same thoughts on AI + data. Well, as a dream. In reality programming seems to be one of the last areas AI is applied to despite the potential benefits.
djeikyb 10y ago
If you remove the indentation, your > will markup the text as a quote. The indentation marks it as unwrapped preformatted text, which renders this text illegible on mobile.
- dpark 10y ago
  > If you remove the indentation, your > will markup the text as a quote. No it won't. It just puts a '>' in front of the line. You can also put asterisks around the text to italicize it (as I've done here). But the '>' has no special support. > This is just normal body text. https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc > The indentation marks it as unwrapped preformatted text, which renders this text illegible on mobile. Verbatim/code formatting does totally break legibility, especially on mobile.
jsprogrammer 10y ago
> There isn't. By definition, there is. It's called Internet Protocol. Data doesn't move on the Internet without it.
galacticpony 10y ago
You're being completely disingenuous here. Nothing is competing with HTML on being what HTML is. Nothing is even close. All text encodings in common use build on top of ANSI. The de-facto standard (now) is UTF-8 and there's no reason to change that. IP really does move all the data around the entire internet (that's kind of in the name right there!). Yes, there are variations, extensions and incompatibilities, but these things are not being re-invented all the time, exactly because these things are ubiquitous standards.

trendia 10y ago

I suspect the author hasn't read The Absolute Minimum ... about Unicode [0] (or why there's no such thing as "plain text") [0] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/10/08/the-absolute-minimum-every-software-developer-absolutely-positively-must-know-about-unicode-and-character-sets-no-excuses/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/10/08/the-absolute-minim...

Dylan16807 10y ago
Almost all of that is irrelevant. Just use UTF-8.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

bborud 10y ago

You sum it up nicely.

std_throwaway 10y ago

Oh no, there are 40 competing standards. We must make one to unify them all! Oh no, there are 41 competing standards.

bluejekyll 10y ago
In fairness they are saying pick one, the earlier one.
- std_throwaway 10y ago
  He picks it up and adds one tiny modification (changing endianess). Others might need to change another detail making their version incompatible again.
  - fnord123 10y ago
    He describes message pack, afaict. Then acknowledges it with tongue in cheek.
MegaButts 10y ago
https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/ edit: scrolling down shows me this has already been posted 3 times in this thread (and will probably be posted a few more times before it's off the front page)

simonh 10y ago

Every now and then I come across someone who thinks data is like water and we should have standardised 'pipes' and components for processing and transporting data and converting it between formats like we have pipes and valves for transporting and purifying water. But data isn't like water, it's like 'chemicals'. You can't have a standard component for processing data the same way you can't have a single components that knows how to process sulphuric acid, crude oil, hydrazine, mercury and molten salt. Data can be binary, delimited, fixed field, lossy, ASCII, Many variations of Unicode, executable, contain attack such as SQL injection, encrypted, have time sensitive delivery requirements, include checksums, require checksums to be applied in the protocol, be meaningless without metadata or other data, and have who knows what other constraints, limitations and requirements. Building a data processing system is not at all like building a water works. It's more like building a chemicals processing plant.

erikb 10y ago
All valid. But if you want to avoid a shock, please don't talk to people who transport actual water in actual pipes. I bet you'd be surprised how many different standards of pipes there are and the long list of features that separate one kind of water from the other. ;-)
- simonh 10y ago
  An excellent point, thank you.
  - kordless 10y ago
    I think the point may include the fact a chemical plant and a water plant are not that much different in comparison to something which is would appear to be a radical shift in approach. It is my opinion that this will be the function AI serves in reality.
    - elcritch 10y ago
      Same thoughts on AI + data. Well, as a dream. In reality programming seems to be one of the last areas AI is applied to despite the potential benefits.

djeikyb 10y ago

If you remove the indentation, your > will markup the text as a quote. The indentation marks it as unwrapped preformatted text, which renders this text illegible on mobile.

dpark 10y ago
> If you remove the indentation, your > will markup the text as a quote. No it won't. It just puts a '>' in front of the line. You can also put asterisks around the text to italicize it (as I've done here). But the '>' has no special support. > This is just normal body text. https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc > The indentation marks it as unwrapped preformatted text, which renders this text illegible on mobile. Verbatim/code formatting does totally break legibility, especially on mobile.

jsprogrammer 10y ago

> There isn't. By definition, there is. It's called Internet Protocol. Data doesn't move on the Internet without it.

galacticpony 10y ago

You're being completely disingenuous here. Nothing is competing with HTML on being what HTML is. Nothing is even close. All text encodings in common use build on top of ANSI. The de-facto standard (now) is UTF-8 and there's no reason to change that. IP really does move all the data around the entire internet (that's kind of in the name right there!). Yes, there are variations, extensions and incompatibilities, but these things are not being re-invented all the time, exactly because these things are ubiquitous standards.