> From: Edward Cherlin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
>
> I would like to point out, again, that there is not now, and cannot
> be, an 8-bit code page adequate to English, and the same is
> necessarily true for every other language in modern use. More than a
> century of typewriters and computers has inured us to the hardship of
> less than publication- and calligraphic-quality documents, but has
> only slightly changed the standards for publication itself.
>
> One of the strongest benefits of Unicode is that it supports adequate
> *monolingual* computing for the first time in any language.
Horsepuckey!
The concept that "publication- and calligraphic-quality documents"
are the standard for "adequate" computing in English is absurd. A brief
glance at handwritten documents or day-to-day works of the last few hundred
years is enough to confirm this. If you are still skeptical, take a good
look at the typesetting quality of the average bestselling paperback, and
note that it has always been possible to use the highest level of the
printer's art in creating these books (the bestsellers, at least).
Aesthetic concerns are nice, but the English-reading community has quite
firmly set them in the "optional" category. For at least one language,
7 bits was plenty.
/|/|ike
