[Python-Dev] Python and the Unicode Character Database (original) (raw)

Stephen J. Turnbull stephen at xemacs.org
Thu Dec 2 01:45:55 CET 2010

Steven D'Aprano writes:

With full respect to haiyang kang, hear-say from one person can hardly be described as "strong" evidence

That's disrespectful nonsense. What Haiyang reported was not hearsay, it's direct observation of what he sees around him and personal experience, plus extrapolation. Look up "hearsay," please.

Furthermore, he provided good objective reason (excessive cost, to which I can also testify, in several different input methods for Japanese) why numbers simply would not be input that way.

What's left is copy/paste via the mouse. I assure you, every day I see dozens of Japanese copy/pasting only ASCII numerals, and the sales figures for Microsoft Excel (not to mention the download numbers for Open Office) strongly suggest that 30 million Japanese salarymen are similarly dedicated to ASCII. (That's not "hearsay" either, that's direct observation and extrapolation, which is more than the "we need float to translate Arabic" supporters can offer.)

I have seen only one use case: it's a toy for sophisticated programmers who want to think of themselves as broadminded. We've seen several examples of that in this thread, so I can't deny that is a real use case.

Please, give us just one more real use case that isn't "somebody might".

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