RE: Gag me with a blunt …

["HUGHES,MARK (Non-HP-FtCollins,ex1)" <mark_hughes@non.hp.com>]

>From: John Cowan [mailto:cowan@mercury.ccil.org]
>Absolutely right.  The ASCII/Unicode analogue of 0x15 is 0x0a (LINE
>FEED), and the ASCII/Unicode analogue of 0x25 is 0x85 (NEW LINE).  So
>when there is an 0x25 in EBCDIC data, it is correctly converted to
>0x85.

  So, why did they choose not to use 0x0D (CR) for 0x25/0x85, since
that's the semantically-closest character?  Do they also have a
CR-equivalent character that isn't being mentioned here, and is useful
information lost by converting 0x25 to 0x0D?  If not, then their
EBCDIC-to-Unicode conversion is, as I said, broken - not producing
useful results, as their problems with XML show.

  No matter how big they are, one company's platform-specific problems
should not be used to drive the rest of the industry.  I should think
that would be self-evident.

  Now, if IBM wants to submit NEL and other Unicode 3.0 whitespace
support as a change for XML 1.1 or further, more power to 'em.  But
changing XML 1.0 for their vanity is not a Thing Which Should Happen.

-- <a href="http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/"> Mark Hughes </a>