Re: [xml-dev] Ten Years Later - XML 1.0 Fifth Edition?

[Elliotte Harold <elharo@metalab.unc.edu>]

Jonathan Robie wrote:

> I think most implementers use the Unicode support in their programming 
> languages or standard Unicode libraries for parsing Unicode, because 
> it's too much work to roll your own. It's odd to tell someone who relies 
> on newer versions of Unicode that although the characters of their 
> language work fine on their computer and can be displayed in their word 
> process, we require XML parsers to check each character to ensure that 
> they do not support these characters.
> 

Really? In the case of of characters added in Unicode 3.0 and later 
there's very little if any support for them in the major operating 
systems. Possibly you can add it in, but it ain't easy. They certainly 
do not "work fine on their computer and can be displayed in their word 
process"

XML has much better support for more languages than any word processor 
or operating system I've ever seen. (Here I do mean the end user 
definition of an OS such as Windows, Mac OS X, Ubuntu, etc; not just the 
CS definition of OS)

Maybe there's a Linux distro somewhere that supports Cherokee, 
Cambodian, or Amharic. There certainly isn't Windows or Mac OS X that 
does though.

-- 
Elliotte Rusty Harold  elharo@metalab.unc.edu
Java I/O 2nd Edition Just Published!
http://www.cafeaulait.org/books/javaio2/
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