Re: [idn] An open letter to the IDN WG (long)

[John C Klensin <klensin@jck.com>]

--On Monday, 19 March, 2001 12:49 -0800 Dave Crocker
<dhc@dcrocker.net> wrote:

> 
> When computer engineers make wishful assertions about our
> manipulating end-users toward some behavior goal, we usually
> discover why it is good that we specialized in working with
> machines and not people...

And that, to reprise part of our conversation in Melbourne, is
why I believe a "grandmother test" needs to be applied to this
work.  And Nameprep --and, more generally, the attempt to get
words in free text to act as identifiers-- fails it.  Of course,
systems based on "all of us who care know what language and
coding those bits represent and can therefore interpret them
appropriately" fail even worse (although perhaps less obviously
and with fewer funny stories).

     john