Re: [idn] Thoughts on nameprep

["D. J. Bernstein" <djb@cr.yp.to>]

Yoshiro YONEYA writes:
> 'intelligent IME'

Could you please explain this in more detail? How does the typical
Japanese keyboard interface work?

What exactly do you type if you want to connect by FTP to ftp.aol.com
and log in as anonymous with password yone@nic.ad.jp? What would you
expect to type if aol and the username and the password were replaced by
Japanese names?

Suppose we settle on fast nameprep: it's the keyboard interface's job to
help you type good domain names, so that other programs don't have to
worry about bad domain names. What changes would you make in the
keyboard interface to support this?

> Half-width kana will be obsolete

So, if we take the slow nameprep approach, then in twenty years we'll
have a bunch of networking programs with the useless skill of converting
half-width kana to full-width kana. Right?

As for numbers, Bruce seemed to say that most applications expect ASCII
digits, and that double-width numbers won't work. If that's correct, why
is anybody using double-width numbers?

---Dan