Re: XHTML2 MIME type

Jelks Cabaniss <jelks@jelks.nu> wrote in
news:003a01c318b7$83d21190$6501a8c0@blackie:

> Except that removing them makes it exponentially more
> difficult for a number of authors who want or need to stay
> within the ASCII subset of UTF-8. Typing &Alpha; when you need
> it is a nobrainer; having to look up the Unicode number for
> each non-ASCII character you enter is a *real* pain.

If you *regularly* use the alpha character, it's ~no more
difficult to remember &#945; than &alpha;[1].

And, if you *don't* regularly use the alpha character, you would
have to look it up anyway.

> There's the invariable "You need a better tool" responses, but
> such always bring very loud screams from those just amputated.

Well, hand-authoring isn't as common as it once were, and I don't
think it's worth keeping character entities just because of this.
And it's not like we're removing the *possibility* to write non-
ASCII characters. You can still write all ISO 10646 characters
using numeric character references, or just directly.

If you're going to write a lot of non-ASCII XHMTL 2 text using
ASCII keyboards, you *will* be much better of using better tools
(or a different keyboard, or both).

[1] I (only) speak from personal experience. I regularly use
    en-dashes, ellipsis and smileys, and write &#8211;, &#x2026;
    and &#x263a; without even thinking about it.

-- 
Karl Ove Hufthammer
http://blogg.huftis.org/

Received on Tuesday, 13 May 2003 17:03:27 UTC