From: Dean Snyder (dean.snyder@jhu.edu)
Date: Fri May 14 2004 - 07:22:47 CDT
jameskass@att.net wrote at 10:09 PM on Thursday, May 13, 2004:
>Dean A. Snyder asks,
>> Why make something we do all the time more difficult and non-standard,
>> when what we do now works very well?
>
>Please, one thing to remember about default collation is that
>it's default. It's only there when no other instructions exist.
>
>Another thing to remember about collation is that it's best
>when tailorable.
> ...
>it's about as hard to program for as allowing for
>differences in case, like "TROLL" vs. "troll". And, in either case,
>it should be done by the tools and trivial to the users, although
>any application which doesn't allow the user to set preferences
>and make rules in such an instance is next to worthless.
Obviously applications can do anything they want with text streams - I've
worked with some sample code from Apple that hit tests glyph shapes and
thereby provides support for pinball machine games with text as bumpers
and flippers.
The issue is not what we CAN do; the issue is what will we be FORCED to
do that already happens right now by default in operating systems,
Google, databases, etc. without any end user fiddling?
Obviously for the statistically fewer custom applications we would write
software.
But it would seem that encoding defaults should mirror script-user defaults.
Respectfully,
Dean A. Snyder
Assistant Research Scholar
Manager, Digital Hammurabi Project
Computer Science Department
Whiting School of Engineering
218C New Engineering Building
3400 North Charles Street
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Maryland, USA 21218
office: 410 516-6850
cell: 717 817-4897
www.jhu.edu/digitalhammurabi
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