Representing Unix filenames in Unicode (original) (raw)

Next message: Neil Harris: "Re: Representing Unix filenames in Unicode"

Hans Aberg wrote:

>>> Most facts points to that the Unicode/10646 is a human interface,
>>> not a computer to computer to computer interface.
>>
>> I wonder what on earth that means.
>
> Do you mean the typo (the erroneously extra "to computer")?

No, I mean saying that "Unicode/10646 is a human interface." It's a
coded character set.

> Otherwise, it just means that computers works best with handling low
> structured binary data, whereas for humans it is the opposite,
> usually handling thinking in terms of high level structures, not even
> binary in nature. If computers should just communicate among
> themselves, as in done in the low level on a filesystem, they do not
> have any benefit of knowing that the filenames can be given human
> interpretation, as is done with the Unicode/10646 character set.
> Right?

Computers are great at byte-level operations, but they also do a fine
job of taking the bytes 0xE2 and 0x98 and 0xBA and converting them to a
single value integer 0x263A. They're also great at using that value to
look up an entry in a table of properties, or mapping it to a glyph in a
font. Interpreting that glyph as a smiling face is a job best left to
humans. This is *no different* for Unicode than for any other coded
character set. Calling Unicode a "human interface" and not a "computer
interface" doesn't shed any light on this for me.

-- Doug Ewell Fullerton, California, USA http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/

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