4 ms·

Anyone can write that a word no longer has its defined meaning. That can’t even be refuted, as it’s certain someone is confused somewhere. However, ASCII is

Anyone can write that a word no longer has its defined meaning. That can’t even be refuted, as it’s certain someone is confused somewhere. However, ASCII is not a random ancient word, it’s a ratified standard. Would be like calling any datetime format “ISO8601”.

samatman 3y ago
Context is important, ya know? If we're talking about text encodings, that's one thing, but we're talking about drawing. "ASCII text" drawing was never entirely limited to ASCII even in the days of single-byte encodings. There were code pages which used the high bit for more useful drawing glyphs, people took advantage of that when they could. The concept of an extended ASCII encoding goes way back: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_ASCII https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_ASCII, and UTF-8 is just another extended ASCII encoding, albeit a very clever one, with a lot of codepoints.
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  Extended supersets of a thing are not the thing, they are a larger group.
  - oasisaimlessly 3y ago
    See synecdoche: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synecdoche https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synecdoche
  - throwaway290 3y ago
    Neither a superset or subset of a thing is the thing. Only the thing is the thing. But when you combine units of language the result is not just the sum of the parts. word1 means X and word2 means Y but established phrase "word1 word2" rarely means X + Y. The result relates to X and Y but it has a life of its own that depends on how it's used. Think of these and how they are more than sum of their parts. Demo scene. Serverless. Skyscraper. Information security. Artificial intelligence. Drawing board.
  - oneeyedpigeon 3y ago
    Are you saying we should reserve the term "ASCII art" literally for text containing just the original 95 printable characters? Even if you can make a good argument for that, I fear you're fighting a losing battle.
    - mixmastamyk 3y ago
      Yes, the terms ANSI art and Unicode art have been around for decades and are defined standards as well. No need to make an argument.
diggan 3y ago
> However, ASCII is not a random ancient word, it’s a ratified standard Even so, ask around and you'll find debates about which ASCII standard is the "right" and "true" one. Some argue only the initial standard is correct for ASCII art, you need to follow that, others say any of the versions are alright. It's still ambiguous.

samatman 3y ago

Context is important, ya know? If we're talking about text encodings, that's one thing, but we're talking about drawing. "ASCII text" drawing was never entirely limited to ASCII even in the days of single-byte encodings. There were code pages which used the high bit for more useful drawing glyphs, people took advantage of that when they could. The concept of an extended ASCII encoding goes way back: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_ASCII https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_ASCII, and UTF-8 is just another extended ASCII encoding, albeit a very clever one, with a lot of codepoints.

mixmastamyk 3y ago
Extended supersets of a thing are not the thing, they are a larger group.
- oasisaimlessly 3y ago
  See synecdoche: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synecdoche https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synecdoche
- throwaway290 3y ago
  Neither a superset or subset of a thing is the thing. Only the thing is the thing. But when you combine units of language the result is not just the sum of the parts. word1 means X and word2 means Y but established phrase "word1 word2" rarely means X + Y. The result relates to X and Y but it has a life of its own that depends on how it's used. Think of these and how they are more than sum of their parts. Demo scene. Serverless. Skyscraper. Information security. Artificial intelligence. Drawing board.
- oneeyedpigeon 3y ago
  Are you saying we should reserve the term "ASCII art" literally for text containing just the original 95 printable characters? Even if you can make a good argument for that, I fear you're fighting a losing battle.
  - mixmastamyk 3y ago
    Yes, the terms ANSI art and Unicode art have been around for decades and are defined standards as well. No need to make an argument.

diggan 3y ago

> However, ASCII is not a random ancient word, it’s a ratified standard Even so, ask around and you'll find debates about which ASCII standard is the "right" and "true" one. Some argue only the initial standard is correct for ASCII art, you need to follow that, others say any of the versions are alright. It's still ambiguous.