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> I think that any modern implementation should allow for identifier names and comments to be in any language. Why should the English speaking world get a free
by cabalamat 17y ago
> I think that any modern implementation should allow for identifier names and comments to be in any language. Why should the English speaking world get a free pass here, and everybody else be at a disadvantage ?
I disagree (I'm designing and implementing a language right now, as it happens). The most important quality of an identifier is that it identifies. Consider the identifier BHOCT. Does it consist of Latin letters or Cyrillic ones? You can't tell -- in many monospaced fonts, they look the same. In fact you could have 2 (or even 32) identifiers that look like BHOCT but which are all different.
Then there's the issue of recognising/recalling letters. If I see an identifier written in Latin letters, I can recognise the individual letters, keep thme in memory and write them down. If I see an identifier in a script I'm unfamiliar with, it just looks like a squiggle so I can't remember it. There are millions of people who know one of the Cyrillic, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Arabic, Devanagari, Tamil and Hebrew scripts, but how many people know all those scripts? Very few. So for identifiers, it's best to specify one script, the one that most people who use computers worldwide are familiar with, the Latin script.
The same argument applies to domain names, which are just identifiers anyway.
- jacquesm 17y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalized_domain_name http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalized_domain_name
- cabalamat 17y agoYour point?
- jacquesm 17y agoDomain names stopped being 'just the latin script' years ago.
- cabalamat 17y agoWhich still doesn't make it a good idea.
- jacquesm 17y agoOn the contrary, it is an excellent idea! For instance many companies and individuals simply can't have their names expressed in the Latin alphabet. Mine is one of them, but since the difference is minor I couldn't care less, but if you are from any one of a multitude of countries who have a script different from the western 26 character set then you're completely out of luck. The internet is global, the DNS is a major component of it and it is absolutely a good idea that they try to be inclusive. That this will lead to some adaptation issues is a nuisance, but since global networking is here to stay and we're currently in the infancy of that now is the time to make these changes.
- cabalamat 17y ago> For instance many companies and individuals simply can't have their names expressed in the Latin alphabet. If someone wants a UK passport, they have to express their name in the Latin alphabet. Given that there are British people with linguistic backgrounds from all over the world, including many different writing systems, and they all manage to do this, I disagree with your statement that it can't be done. It clearly can be done, and in fact is done on a regular basis.