Re: [idn] UTF-8 / RACE

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

Adam M. Costello writes:
> telnet `ace NATIVECHARACTERS`

Even if that were a complete solution---what do you do about telnet's
open command? or its status display? or the ssh password prompt? etc.---
it would have no advantages over simply fixing gethostbyname().

When I was working out the details of the ACE solution, I was careful to
minimize the number of pieces of code that would have to be upgraded and
redeployed, subject to the constraint of names being encoded as ACE over
the wire. Using ACE on the telnet command line and the ssh command line
and so on would be, to put it bluntly, bad programming.

> with or without ACE, people will have to upgrade their applications

Except, of course, for all the programs that _already_ work with UTF-8.
See http://cr.yp.to/proto/idn.html.

---Dan