On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 11:33:36AM +0100, Alaric Snell-Pym wrote: > > On 24 Sep 2009, at 11:05 am, Christopher Chittleborough wrote: > > > The character==grapheme approach makes strings simple and > > characters complicated. You'd even need a procedure to > > construct character values, something like > > (make-character BASE_CHAR LIST_OF_MODIFIERS) > > which I for one find mind-boggling.
I don't find that so mind-boggling. I find the alternative to be much worse; requiring all programmers to get this right in their code results in a lot of duplication of effort and will often simply be done wrong. > > Then you need procedures to add/remove/reorder modifiers, > > etc etc. > > > > So we have an alternative to the character==codepoint approach. > > Is it a good alternative? I don't know. > > I think it is... +1 > I think the cases were you need to get down into the > codepoints are probably rarer than the cases where characters are what > you should be concentrating on. And you can still get at the > codepoints, when you need to, by picking characters apart. Maybe someone who has had to do extensive character modification can chime in? I have a feeling most people replying here have never needed to do any substantial cross-language string handling. (I know I haven't) > > A good answer to that question will probably have to wait for > > Perl 6 to be released and put into widespread use. > > Yeah, it'll be good to get feedback on that. Ah great, maybe we can have it by the time we get to R10RS then! > > If this approach was adopted, support would have to be optional > > for the sake of resource-constrained implementations. > > Well, not necessarily; implementations should be free to provide a > subset of the repertoire, such as that provided by ASCII, but they can > still provide the API... Yeah, it would simply be a mostly empty implementation. No problem there. Cheers, Peter -- http://sjamaan.ath.cx -- "The process of preparing programs for a digital computer is especially attractive, not only because it can be economically and scientifically rewarding, but also because it can be an aesthetic experience much like composing poetry or music." -- Donald Knuth
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