4 ms·

Hell, no. I was just wondering if there was an even better product of a design by committee. ASCII is pretty good for its time and how it was created.

• karmakaze 4y ago
  Unicode kept the ASCII part, so no? The only thing I found weird is the non-printable DEL 127 character being where it is.
  • Beltalowda 4y ago
    On punchcards having it as the highest character (with all holes punched) is the only way you can reliably do "delete" or "ignore" outside of having a special dedicated hole for it.
  • kps 4y ago
    DEL derives from earlier teletypewriter codes, and is based on the use of paper tape. All bits set means all holes punched, so it's the only code that can eliminate any other code.
• db48x 4y ago
  Common Lisp was designed by a committee, and is widely regarded as an excellent language (or at least an excellent Lisp). It even has principles that it sticks to throughout. For example, it is deliberately designed to be a multi–paradigm language, allowing the user to write programs in functional, imperative, or object–oriented styles without forcing one or the other.