Hacker News Reader

I use three languages commonly : French, English and Russian. I can set the language for non-Unicode programs only once, which means I can't display all programs written with a different encoding properly.

Please just use Unicode.

View on HN

It's sort of interesting how unicode solved your problem, but totally ignored the exact same problem in east asia. It's still not possible to have a single unicode text file with japanese and chinese kanji in it. The official unicode answer is to not use plain text; use a rich text format that allows the specification of fonts instead. I sort of think unicode would be a much better global standard if it hadn't tried to merge the different kanji used by over a billion people.

The article doesn't say you shouldn't use Unicode. But it explains that only using Unicode just isn't enough. You need more. You shouldn't stop thinking at Unicode. Don't JUST use Unicode, use Unicode and more.

A small example: many programs do not fold accents. So when I start typing "lo" in the to: field of most email apps, it suggests "Lorena Foo" but not "Fulanito López".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com