Re: Please change validator pages to UTF-8

Hello Terje,

I think there is a difference between using UTF-8 throughout
and using fancy characters which get a bit easier when using Unicode.
I think we should do the former now, while the later may easily
wait way past 0.7. I do not think that simply marking something
as UTF-8 should cause any problems on Netscape 3.x (but it's
a long time since I last used that browser).

Regards,  Martin.

At 21:03 03/07/04 +0200, Terje Bless wrote:
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>Martin Duerst <duerst@w3.org> wrote:
>
> >I was quite surprised to see that the main validator page (and probably
> >others) are still iso-8859-1 (see e.g.
> >http://webtools.mozilla.org/web-sniffer/view.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%
> >2Fvalidator. w3.org%2F). This leads to problems when validating IRIs
> >and, once we support that, IDNs.
> >
> >All validator output is UTF-8, and there is no reason to have the input
> >be something else.
>
>Well, that's a good point; but the main reason the pages are still iso-8859-1
>is that older browsers had trouble with UTF-8. This was also the reason for
>nuking some "fancy quotes" scattered around the site.
>
>What I've been thinking is that 0.6.x should keep compatibility with these
>browsers -- which is Netscape 3.x, _not_ 4.x, BTW :-) -- and then revisit the
>issue for 0.7. Most likely -- unless I'm persuaded otherwise again -- 0.7 will
>be all UTF-8 and freely making use of "Unicode" features (such as the
>mentioned typographical quote marks).
>
>
>Part of the reason for this is that around 0.7 we need to take a long hard
>look at what backwards compatibility we want to invest resources in
>supporting; as well as what width of platforms to support. e.g. how old
>"standard" linux distros do we want to support, and whether or not we want to
>support Win32; in which case we need to actually resolve all the issues with
>that platform. Win32 in particular is difficult since we don't have a working
>SGML/XML Parser on that platform. Bj旦rn has made quite a bit of progress on
>that, but I don't know how much time/opportunity he has to keep working at it
>(and it's a bear of task too).
>
>( BTW, Bj旦rn, I can probably arrange for access to a Win32 box with the 
>Visual
>Foo tools for you if that would help. )
>
>- --
>Ladies and gentlemen, you must resist those all-too-human feelings and decide
>this case on the evidence.    And the evidence plainly shows that Mr. Landa's
>injuries,   disfiguring as they are,  are nowhere near as important to a free
>society as the fundamental right to make smart-ass remarks.   -- Katie @ AtAT
>
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Received on Monday, 7 July 2003 11:05:42 UTC