Subject: Re: invert-string revisited From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Sat, 08 Jun 2002 00:03:58 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3232483433870827@naggum.net> * Kragen Sitaker | Code points that are unassigned today may be Unicode characters tomorrow. *sigh* You cannot use them today if they are not assigned today. | The phrasing of the objection is based on the tables varying with | language processor version; the substance of the objection is based only | on the tables varying. Well, the tables do not vary with the language processor, and if the tables change, chances are pretty damn small that you would suddenly notice and need any of the new characters. Or do you code in futhark? | Making the tables vary with operating system version rather than language | processor version does not improve the situation; now every version of | every operating system has its private dialect of the language, even when | the same version of the same language processor is running on it. This is highly misleading and uselessly inflammatory. This situation is quite similar to driving your car across city limits in the U.S. The precise set of laws and regulations that determine the totality of allowable behavior changes not only from city to city, but they may be changed as you drive through a particular jurisdiction! Yikes! You may enter the city limit a law-abiding citizen and flee it a haunted criminal a few minutes later, without doing a thing! How can anyone possibly deal with this unpredictable randomness? The Uniform United States Code is unworkable! Democracy and rights and constitutions and procedures be damned, it is impossible to ascertain that you are a law-abiding citizen and you must fear the police at all times, as you may have broken a law that has just changed underneath you. Not only are the police potentially after you, other drivers may be phoning the police about you as you slowly drive past them. "Cell phone" just got a new meaning! The fear, the suspense, the sheer _angst_ of the American driver is such a problem that we must shut down the legislative process and make changes in laws and regulations only at midnight on March 15, thirty minutes before and after which it would be illegal to be inside a car or less than 100 meters from any vehicle. (Yes, we will convert to metric, too, just to be extra evil.) Or you can just drive you car through the city blissfully ignorant of all the _specific_ laws and regulations because the system is sufficiently stable and sane that these things do not actually ever happen. You may, however, be a law-abiding citizen in one jurisdiction and a criminal in the next. Did that frighten your socks off, or what? But if you live on the Unicode Fringe, I think you ought to be paranoid, as you have a criminal character and may be guilty of a capital crime. Please pardon the lack of respect for your hysterical opinion. | I appreciate the design advice. Be sure that in the unlikely case that I | ever deliver software to you, it will not contain compiled-in character | property tables. This I appreciate in return, however. -- In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none. In a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief. 70 percent of American adults do not understand the scientific process.