4 ms·

Other languages? Other than what?

by klabb3 5y ago

bryanrasmussen 5y ago
Given the ways that English works, one of which is the removal of all sorts of deliberate and tedious indications as to what one is talking about usually found in the Germanic languages, when one writes in English and uses the phrase 'other languages' but there is no specific language under discussion it should be understood that other languages refers to languages other than English.
- happytoexplain 5y ago
  The parent is making the point that the language the grandparent is referring to is irrelevant to the language of an arbitrary individual included in the word "we".
- klabb3 5y ago
  It was just rhetorical. As the sibling comment alluded to, it can come off as quite anglocentric. There is some historical relevance to this point - much of the technology we use today was created with such biases baked in. I apologize if this came off as snarky.
hashimotonomora 5y ago
If I’m writing industrial automation, server-side applications, video rendering codecs, why do I need to make it much more complex with Unicode? I just need and want pure 1 byte ASCII.
- happytoexplain 5y ago
  The grandparent's assertion was in the general case, not specific cases. However, even for your specific cases, it is possible - even likely - to at some point handle user-facing text (i.e. text that is reasonable to localize), at the very least in the form of error messages. Also, the complexity of Unicode is typically already well implemented by default in most environments, and the real issue only comes at the intersection of user-facing text and functional strings (e.g. URLs and filenames), which is a problem that Unicode is another tool to exploit, but not a problem that Unicode invented. We have been trying to detangle the dual nature of URLs/filenames for a long time. However, tangential to the grandparent's topic, I do imagine there are very specialized cases where Unicode is pretty objectively unnecessary.
tom_ 5y ago
Being charitable: other than the one(s) in the current code page?

Other languages? Other than what?

by klabb3 5y ago

Other languages? Other than what?

Given the ways that English works, one of which is the removal of all sorts of deliberate and tedious indications as to what one is talking about usually found in the Germanic languages, when one writes in English and uses the phrase 'other languages' but there is no specific language under discussion it should be understood that other languages refers to languages other than English.

happytoexplain 5y ago
The parent is making the point that the language the grandparent is referring to is irrelevant to the language of an arbitrary individual included in the word "we".
klabb3 5y ago
It was just rhetorical. As the sibling comment alluded to, it can come off as quite anglocentric. There is some historical relevance to this point - much of the technology we use today was created with such biases baked in. I apologize if this came off as snarky.

hashimotonomora 5y ago

If I’m writing industrial automation, server-side applications, video rendering codecs, why do I need to make it much more complex with Unicode? I just need and want pure 1 byte ASCII.

happytoexplain 5y ago
The grandparent's assertion was in the general case, not specific cases. However, even for your specific cases, it is possible - even likely - to at some point handle user-facing text (i.e. text that is reasonable to localize), at the very least in the form of error messages. Also, the complexity of Unicode is typically already well implemented by default in most environments, and the real issue only comes at the intersection of user-facing text and functional strings (e.g. URLs and filenames), which is a problem that Unicode is another tool to exploit, but not a problem that Unicode invented. We have been trying to detangle the dual nature of URLs/filenames for a long time. However, tangential to the grandparent's topic, I do imagine there are very specialized cases where Unicode is pretty objectively unnecessary.

tom_ 5y ago

Being charitable: other than the one(s) in the current code page?