Re: HTML5 Issue 11 (encoding detection): I18N WG response...

On Sun, 11 Oct 2009, Leif Halvard Silli wrote (reordered):
> 
> The choice of character set - alphabet - for instance, has always been a
> political matter, and still is.

Ok, then it seems sensible to use a political way of speaking to refer to 
the choice of alphabet.


> "Western this-and-that" is predominantly a political way of speaking. 

Good, then it is appropriate terminology.


> Therefore is wrong to use a wording that causes readers to think in 
> political terms.

But you agree that it _is_ a political matter.


> It is wrong to nourish the thought that if some population changes to 
> use an alphabet which is covered by Win1252, that they then will start 
> to belong to the "Western demographics".

It doesn't matter if a population _changes_ to use an alphabet which is 
covered by 1252, because that will only affect future pages, not legacy 
pages, and it is only legacy pages we are concerned about.

What phrase best approximates the areas of the world where _today_ UAs are 
shipping with a 1252 default encoding?


> Does Croatia belong to "Western demographics, for instance? Why? And why 
> not? The Croatian alphabet is not covered by Win1252. What about Serbia? 
> Serbia uses both Cyrillic and Latin side by side.

What default encodings to browsers use in those areas?


> As you can see, "Western demographics" is a wording that - depending on 
> how you define "Western" -covers both narrower and wider than e.g. 
> "writing systems covered by Win1252".

Is there a better term that would more accurately refer to the areas of 
the world where a UA needs to ship with a Win1252 default encoding?


> For example you could say "For demographics that are covered by what in 
> user agents and e-mail applications are typically known as "Western" or 
> "West European" encodings, then Win1252 is the best default".

That's circular logic ("Use Win1252 as a default for demographics where 
Win1252 is the default"). The point is to be able to give implementation 
advice that is useful independent of the implementor performing any 
reverse engineering, studying of other user agents, etc.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Sunday, 11 October 2009 19:13:23 UTC