From: Hans Aberg (haberg@math.su.se)
Date: Wed Jan 19 2005 - 20:02:31 CST
On 2005/01/20 02:28, Christopher Fynn at cfynn@gmx.net wrote:
>> Whereas UTF-16 might have been used widely in some quarters up today, my
>> impression is that this is more of a legacy thing, and UTF-8 and UTF-32 will
>> eventually become the only modern formats in use. In the past, one
>> originally used 16-bits integral types because one thought Unicode would not
>> exceed 2^16 numbers. But when it is clear it does not suffice, there is no
>> point using it in new software, except for legacy. UTF-32 will be used for
>> speed, and UTF-8 for compatibility with ASCII and solving the endian issue.
> If you choose Save as "Unicode" in MS applications what do you get? The
> "legacy" of all that data being created today in MS Office etc on Windows
> machines is going to be around for awhile.
One can do as in the C++ standard with its .h headers, decide to keep UTF-16
for now as legacy, but indicate that it may be phased out in a later Unicode
version. Developers then get X numbers of years to change. It will be easy
to make new editors read the old formats but save them in the new formats.
Hans Aberg
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