[ESW Wiki] Update of "geoEncoding" by RichardIshida

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The following page has been changed by RichardIshida:
http://esw.w3.org/topic/geoEncoding


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  Author: David Clarke
  
+ [[RI we should add:
+ 
+ Question: What is 'character encoding', and why should I care?
+ 
+ ]]
+ 
+ 
+ '''[[RI''' Although the question has it, i think, the right way round to grab attention, I think the explanation may be better if it started off with the problem statement - ie. why should i care?  I think this should be put in very simple, graphic terms:  Characters are represented in a computer using bytes. If the bytes representing character in your text are misinterpreted you get a mess, like this... There a several schemes for associating bytes with characters, and determining what characters are included in a set.  Examples are...
+ 
+ I fear the current text is too abstract and not simple enough.  ]]
  
  = What is Encoding? =
  
@@ -25, +35 @@

  One of the predominant encodings was ASCII {should be refernced}
  
  Extensions to ASCII were provided for representing some other languages, by assigning locale specific values whilst remaining within 8 bit character sets. This allowed for language specific character sets as extensions of ASCII, but only allows 128 more characters. This is adequate for adding French, German or Finnish accents and even adding small alphabets such as Greek.
+ 
+ '''[[RI''' This is all dudley boring.  Can we add some pictures? See for example [[http://people.w3.org/rishida/scripts/tutorial/slides/Slide0190.html http://people.w3.org/rishida/scripts/tutorial/slides/Slide0190.html]] and following slides.]]
  
  Extended ASCII cannot support large character sets such as the Japanese Kanji, which has 1,945 government approved characters and numerous additional ones used for special purposes such as names.

Received on Wednesday, 19 October 2005 16:08:23 UTC