I was reading the thread here... http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/db90a9629b92aab0/b0385050b4c6c84e?hl=en&lnk=raot#b0385050b4c6c84e
and it raised some fundamental philophosical questions to me about natural languages and Unicode. Which IMO * Unicode* is simply a monkey patch for this soup of multiple languages we have to deal with in programming and communication. Unicode (*puke*) seems nothing more than a brain fart of morons. And sadly it was created by CS majors who i assumed used logic and deductive reasoning but i must be wrong. Why should the larger world keep supporting such antiquated languages and character sets through Unicode? What purpose does this serve? Are we merely trying to make everyone happy? A sort of Utopian free-language-love-fest-kinda- thing? But there is a larger problem that is at the heart of Unicode itself, and it has to do with this multi-language/multi-culture world we live in. Even today in 2009 AD with all our technology and advancements we still live in a dark ages of societal communication. Of the many things that divide us such as race, color, religion, geography, blah, the most perplexing and devastating seems to be why have we not accepted a single global language for all to speak. Take for instance the Chinese language with it's thousands of characters and BS, it's more of an art than a language. Why do we need such complicated languages in this day and time. Many languages have been perfected, (although not perfect) far beyond that of Chinese language. The A-Z char set is flawless! Some may say well how can we possibly force countries/people to speak/ code in a uniform manner? Well that's simple, you just stop supporting their cryptic languages by dumping Unicode and returning to the beautiful ASCII and adopting English as the universal world language. Why English? Well because it is so widely spoken. But whatever we choose just choose one language and stick with it, perfect it, and maintain it. IMO Multiple languages are barriers to communication, collaboration, and the continuation of our future evolution as intelligent Human beings and this language multiplicity will comprise our future until it is reigned in and utterly destroyed. And i think most of you are missing how important this really is to our future. And so these problems bring me to the main subject of this thread "Unicode Sucks" Now you may say to yourself "I am not a sociologist i am a programmer, so why should i give a flying fig about natural languages or Unicode, i just accept things as they are". Well yes you could just go on accepting the status quo that is surely the easy route, but your life would be so much easier if you crusaded for change. BUT STOP!, before i go any further i want to respond to what i know will be condemnation from the sociology nuts out there. Yes multiculturalism is great, yes art is great, but if you can't see how the ability to communicate is severely damperd by multi-languages then you only *feel* with your heart but you apparently have no ability to reason with your mind intelligently. [nested thoughts] A few months ago i was watching some tear-jerking documentary called something like "Save the Languages" or "The dying languages" blah! In the documentary these two bleeding-heart-ivy-leaguers were running all over the world to document some obscure languages that were on the verge of extinction. And at one utterly amazing point in the episode they start crying and moaning for the loss of these languages like their own mother had died a horrible death. I watched all this in much horror and disbelief with jaw-dropped and i am still scared by the thought that people actually buy into this BS! Has the world gone mad? [back on track] The death of a language is as natural as the death of a flower, or a fish, or even the ever long oxidation of aluminum coke can. When a life form dies it brings life to the next generation. With languages, each death compiles upon the last and we are one step closer to the unifying language that we all so disparately need. We should herald the death of the languages like the jazz funerals of New Orleans with much happiness and fanfare for there is no reason to be sad. It's called evolution people! Ever heard of science? So ditch the useless Unicode and save us all a few keystrokes and bottles of aspirin for the persistent headaches! Simplicity is beautiful!! -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list