RE: For review: Character encodings in HTML and CSS

Richard Ishida, Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:13:53 -0000:
>> From: John Cowan [mailto:cowan@ccil.org]


>> I'd avoid the term "character set" altogether in favor of "character
>> repertoire".
> 
> I was tempted, but I wanted to use 'character set' to encourage better
> understanding of what the term really means.

+1

I think that the article gives good meaning if one have in mind/get the 
idea that encodings also have a char(acter )set. E.g. in this wording: 
"since approaches that use the Unicode character set typically make 
life much easier for the developer and content author". If one replaced 
the word "approaches" with "encodings", then the sentence would express 
why one should choose a Unicode encoding. 

I personally would have found it useful to even more directly explain 
why "charset" has meaning as synonym of "encoding", e.g. by saying that 
"charset" refers to the character set of the encoding: The best thing 
is when all necessary letters can be expressed directly in the coding, 
without additional encoding (escapes).

>> Since this is a tutorial, I would leave out UTF-32 altogether.
>> Nobody uses UTF-32 on the web.
> 
> I think I only mention it in passing.

And I'm not sure what it would mean to leave it out all together. I 
think it is useful to talk about UTF-32, since it is the encoding which 
corresponds most directly to  hexadecimal NCRs and to CSS escapes.
-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Thursday, 11 February 2010 09:06:32 UTC