Re: wide characters and i18n

[der Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

>> http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/utf.html
> ...which is also simplistic in the assumption and problems faced.  If
> you want to know about the issues with I18N and Unicode in specific,
> don't ask Americans.  Don't ask Europeans either, they only have
> slightly more exposure to the problems.

That actually was one thing I very much liked about that Plan 9
document.  They recognized and specifically called out the places where
they knew they were making limiting assumptions - such as the
assumption of left-to-right top-to-bottom text.

I don't agree with everything they did, but that's hardly surprising,
and it doesn't make what they did any worse.  (Indeed, I suspect there
are a few who would call that a recommendation.)

Trying to solve all the problems usually ends up failing and solving
none.  Plan 9 doesn't solve all the world's UI issues.  But it
addressed a specific, well-chosen subset of them and did a pretty good
job of solving them.  That they didn't solve others doesn't invalidate
what they did do.

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