What every software developer must know about Unicode in 2023 • Hacker News Board

Re: What every software developer must know about Unicode in 2023

#91

Post by JonChesterfield » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 2:12 PM UTC

Prior to this article, I knew graphemes were a thing and that proper unicode software is supposed to count those instead of bytes or code points.

I didn't know that unicode changes the definition of grapheme in backwards incompatible fashion annually, so software which works by grapheme count is probably inconsistent with other software using a different version of the standard anyway.

I'm therefore going to continue counting bytes. And comparing by memcmp. If the bytes look like unicode to some reader, fine. Opaque string as far as my software is concerned.

Re: What every software developer must know about Unicode in 2023

#92

Post by JonChesterfield » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 2:16 PM UTC

ilyt wrote: post #32

> Unicode is locale-dependent Well, there is a new fact that I learned and immediately hated. The fuck were authors thinking... I am now firmly convinced people developing unicode hate developers. I suspected it before just due to how messy it was (same character having different encodings ? Really ? Fuck you), but this cements it.

Well C is locale dependent. And one does not break backwards compatibility with C for fear of badness. So naturally Unicode must be locale dependent too.

Re: What every software developer must know about Unicode in 2023

#93

Post by Luctct » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 2:17 PM UTC

tr888 wrote: post #41

What on EARTH is that mouse cursor thing all about? Why would you even bother writing this, then making it impossible to read properly?

I don't know what you people are talking about. I'm just glad I always browse with Javascript turned off. If you didn't see the writing on the wall and permanently turn Javascript off around 2006, you have no right to complain about anything.

Meanwhile, ironic irony is ironic: "Hey, idiots! Learn to use Unicode already! Usability and stuff! Oh, btw, here is some extremely annoying Javascript pollution on your screen because we are all still children, right? Har har! Pranks are so kewl!!!1!"

Re: What every software developer must know about Unicode in 2023

#94

Post by amelius » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 2:21 PM UTC

Can we please get a standard that describes how emoji are supposed to look?

Now they look different on every platform and many subtleties are lost in translation.

Re: What every software developer must know about Unicode in 2023

#95

Post by Joker_vD » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 2:23 PM UTC

jetbalsa wrote: post #50

vacuity wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be the change you want to see in the world. If we're going to make huge breaking changes, might as well do it sooner rather than later.

With something as large as a end user language format for input, this is a change we ourselves cannot make, just as using another calendar for dates. Just because I want to use the year 2002023 calendar with 29.5 days per month, doesn't make it useful to others or myself really.

Do your dates alpha-convert?

Re: What every software developer must know about Unicode in 2023

#96

Post by hahn-kev » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 2:25 PM UTC

qwerty456127 wrote: post #23

> People are not limited to a single locale. For example, I can read and write English (USA), English (UK), German, and Russian. Which locale should I set my computer to? Ideally - the "English-World" locale is supposedly meant for us, cosmopolitans. It's included with Windows 10 and 11. Practically, as "English-World" was not available in the past (and still wasn't available on platforms other than Windows the last…

As much as I appreciate that I always wondered how many programs actually respect all those tweaks.

Re: What every software developer must know about Unicode in 2023

#97

Post by cormullion » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 2:28 PM UTC

dekken_ wrote: post #2

Am I supposed to hate this website, cause I kinda do

It’s not pleasant to read. Strange, since Tonsky is the curator of the Fira Code font, and would presumably be interested in presentation

Re: What every software developer must know about Unicode in 2023

#98

Post by ebiester » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 2:32 PM UTC

m3kw9 wrote: post #89

Unicode looks like a big over engineered standard that had 50 hands trying to put their mark in

It looks like that because Unicode is trying to solve a problem that everyone thinks is easy until they uncover the true extent of encoding human languages.

Re: What every software developer must know about Unicode in 2023

#99

Post by lifeinthevoid » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 2:35 PM UTC

davidham wrote: post #10

Is it just me, or is anyone else seeing what looks like the mouse pointer of everyone else reading the page, like 1,000 little ants on the screen

yup, pretty annoying

Re: What every software developer must know about Unicode in 2023

#100

Post by grotorea » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 2:40 PM UTC

qwerty456127 wrote: post #83

grotorea wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Practically, as "English-World" was not available in the past (and still wasn't available on platforms other than Windows the last time I checked), I have always been setting the locale to En-US even though I have never been to America. This leads to a number of annoyances though. E.g. LibreOffice always creates new documents for the Letter paper format and I have to switch it to A4 manually every time. It's even w…

Thank you very much, I'll give it a try.

It's a bit of a joke that doesn't have universal support. Works on my phone. Apparently you can also try en_IE (Ireland).

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/62316/why-is-there-...