Re: [idn] Comparisons of the proposals

[Harald Alvestrand <Harald@Alvestrand.no>]

At 09:06 23.03.00 -0800, Paul Hoffman / IMC wrote:
>It is likely that the vast majority of zone files are edited over telnet 
>sessions on VT-100 emulators, which will not translate UTF-8 correctly. 
>Whatever the WG goes with, whether it is UTF-8 or an ASCII encoding, is 
>going to need translation tools for editing the zone files. The 
>translation tools for UTF-8 will be easier and more widespread because it 
>is a format that is already in use.

Because of unfettered registration, the vast majority of zones are in files
generated by scripts from databases, and manipulated using Web pages.

IMNSHO, the second biggest group (of which I have no statistics) is managed 
using the point-and-click interfaces of the Windows NT Domain Name Server.

The third group (generic text editors on Unix systems) is IMNSHO also the 
group that will have the *smallest* problems with switching to an 
appropriate tool for zone file editing.

Note that zone file editing need only display *the characters used in that 
zone*, which is most likely the characters that the manager already knows 
how to generate from the keyboard; I wouldn't want to enter Han into my 
zonefiles for anything but testing, while James probably wouldn't want to 
enter Norwegian characters (ÆØÅ) into his zone files.

This herring is red.

                   Harald


--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, EDB Maxware, Norway
Harald.Alvestrand@edb.maxware.no