Re: [idn] Alpha Online

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

Dan Oscarsson writes:
> I have had case insensitivity in my software from the beginning. It is
> not hard work. Very easy.

We're not talking about folding A-Z into a-z. We're talking about case
insensitivity for _Unicode_. Case insensitivity for _internationalized_
domain names requires quite a bit of extra code in many programs.

Consider, for example, a system administrator telling his MTA ``accept
mail for pi.cr.yp.to'' with a Greek pi. Case insensitivity for IDNs
means that the MTA also has to accept mail for Pi.cr.yp.to.

(Of course, Costello is still denying that MTAs, DNS servers, etc. are
affected by IDNA at all, because Costello refuses to acknowledge that
these programs have user interfaces.)

Interoperability requires that we continue folding A-Z into a-z inside
domain names. But it doesn't require insensitivity for non-ASCII names.

> When you speak
> the case of letters are not heard so the user do not know what to type.

``Capital T, lowercase e, capital X.''

Typical users avoid all these hassles by consistently using lowercase,
contrary to the claims made by certain people on this mailing list. For
example, someone here said that we needed uppercase because the World
Health Organization was ``much easier to recognize'' as WHO.org than as
who.org; but the WHO web site consistently uses lowercase who.int.

Anyway, (1) your notion of speakability is contrary to the entire
concept of IDNs, and (2) I don't see you telling the standardization
groups for UNIX, URLs, French, etc. that you demand insensitivity.

---Dan