4 ms·
In machine encoding formats, "much less likely" is the same as "very likely". You're either OK for something to happen or you categorically make it impossible t
by slver 5y ago
In machine encoding formats, "much less likely" is the same as "very likely". You're either OK for something to happen or you categorically make it impossible to happen.
Invisible characters also mean you can no longer call a data format "human readable".
The special ASCII characters you're referring to are mostly a historical oddity today.
- jrochkind1 5y agoHow much have you worked with actually existing CSV data? If it was as easy as "making it categorically impossible to happen", working with CSV wouldn't be such a mess! You can say whatever you want in whatever standard you want, data bugs still happen. Any CSV format description anywhere, will of course you need to use various internal escaping mechanisms for a literal comma, or forbid them entirely. Does that "categorically make it impossible to happen"? Obviously not, words in a standard can't make something categorically impossible. How likely a protocol/standard violation is to happen of course matters to actual practical pain. Yes, of course the ascii separator values are a historical path not taken. This thread, not started by me, was musing about why, and what-if, by people who, believe it or not, have plenty of experience dealing with data, and bad data.
- slver 5y agoYou’ve misinterpreted my comment. And arguing about unrelated things.