Re: ASCII and Unicode lifespan (was: Corrections to Glagolitic)

From: Hans Aberg (haberg@math.su.se)
Date: Tue May 17 2005 - 11:25:27 CDT

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    At 06:56 -0700 2005/05/17, Doug Ewell wrote:
    >Hans Aberg <haberg at math dot su dot se> replied:
    >
    >> It can be instructive to check the history of ASCII. See for example
    >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII
    >> It says that the presently most widely used form is ANSI X3.4-1986.
    >> So that standard has been in active use only 19 years.
    >
    >That's not a standard, it's a version of a standard. That would be like
    >talking about the life expectancy of "Unicode 4.1" instead of "Unicode."

    Of course.

    >For 99.9% of ASCII usage, there is no difference between the 1967
    >version of ASCII and the 1986 update. I believe the update had to do
    >with the issue of treating 0x24 as a nationally variable "currency sign"
    >versus hard-coding it to the dollar sign.

    It could mean that Unicode has a few more years of longevity to hope for. :-)

    -- 
       Hans Aberg
    


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