Re: [idn] UTF-8 as the long-term IDN solution

[Dave Crocker <dhc@dcrocker.net>]

At 01:07 PM 5/29/2001, D. J. Bernstein wrote:
>He'll be working with text in UTF-8. But wait, you say, he has to
>convert to some screwy ACE format on the wire.

It's true.  Practical standards are really a drag.

We should change them every year... no, that won't be quick enough.

Let's say every 3 months, to reflect all of the most modern changes in 
technical practise.

Each 3 months, it will of course be obvious what the new practises, 5 years 
from now, will be.

After all, we all have such a good track record when predicting the future, 
don't we.  In 1992 we were assured that Unicode was instantly going to be 
in mass use, for example.

But wait.  It takes years to adopt and deploy a standard.  That means that 
we will never have any stability, since we will be spending all our time 
revising everything to be infinitely current.

After all, look how much better the computer science purity of X.400 was, 
over the clearly atrocious -- and by the way, I'm not kidding -- 
RFC822/RFC821 suite.


>You should be ashamed of yourself.

Dan, please stop talking to yourself outloud.  Try listening and you might 
learn something.

d/

----------
Dave Crocker   <mailto:dcrocker@brandenburg.com>
Brandenburg InternetWorking   <http://www.brandenburg.com>
tel: +1.408.246.8253;   fax: +1.408.273.6464