- From: Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu>
- Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 00:35:03 -0400
- To: Martin Duerst <duerst@w3.org>
- cc: Tim Bray <tbray@textuality.com>, www-tag@w3.org
> While indeed currently http is defined to use %hh escaping, > why would there be a need to restrict over the wire to ASCII, > in particular for future protocols? TCP/IP doesn't have any > problems with 8-bit data. TCP doesn't have any problems with arbitrary binary data either, but for some reason people often prefer to use text. The popularity of XML illustrates that rather well. For similar reasons, people often prefer to restrict the set of characters that are used for certain purposes. For instance, it's useful if resource identifiers are transmitted in a form that can be displayed on any terminal, transcribed on most keyboards, and printed on any printer. In other words, it's not TCP that's the problem - it's the inability of most human beings and their keyboards to cope with the tremendous diversity of characters that are in use. TCP is data transparent, but human eyes, minds, voices, and fingers aren't. Keith
Received on Tuesday, 28 May 2002 00:35:07 UTC