Re: [idn] UTF-8 / RACE

[Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu>]

> > Again, I don't see it.  In either the ACE case or the UTF8 case you
> > have to separate domain names from other text for the purpose of
> > input. In the case of ACE you have to separate them for the purpose
> > of presentation also, but often you would have had to do it anyway.
> 
> Domain names show up all over the place. lpq listings, netstat, etc. Even
> in a GUI environment where font management was simpler, not much of this
> stuff would convert ACE for output purposes. Opinion.

I agree.  even with an ACE scheme, most of the time when a domain appeared
in text it would appear in native format (i.e. whatever character set and
encoding were used by that text format) rather than ACE.

this is fine so long as:

- things that look up domains first nameprep and convert them to ACE
- things that compare domains know how to handle domains in both 
native and ACE formats

The worst problem with ACE is that legacy software will sometimes leak the
ACE form of a domain into ordinary text.   But I don't think that this 
will happen too much with ugpraded software (which will hide ACEs from the user). 

Keith