Re: java and unicode

From: Rick McGowan (rmcgowan@apple.com)
Date: Tue Feb 03 1998 - 18:27:02 EST


Well... I always get a little rambunctious when people talk about some
programming language spec supporting or not supporting i18n or bidi or
whatever. Java is just a programming language (not manna from heaven as some
people appear to believe). So why should a programing language spec talk
about anything other than the syntax and semantics of the language itself?
Why on earth need it specify anything about BIDI? (The libraries are a
different matter, of course, if you have a set of them that you prefer to
work with.)

To put it a little academically... The Unicode BIDI algorithm can be
implemented in C. For the sake of argument, I'll assume C is a Turing
complete language. If we assume Java is also Turing complete, then they're
formally equivalent, and hence Java is a perfectly usable vehicle for
implementing the Unicode BIDI algorithm. As near as I can tell, you can
support BIDI with either language, or COBOL or Z80 assembly language for that
matter. Support for BIDI has nothing to do with programming language specs.

What's the problem?

        Rick



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