hi tedd,

yes it was a bit facetious as a comment. personally i think that one of 
best parts of xml and unicode and utf is how it has moved the internet 
from a very western centric view to a very global view and continues to 
do that.

the original post was about the fairness of the number of coding symbols 
in various languages.  the rest belongs and has been discussed in a few 
of the permathreads (like information content vs bits to transmit)

rick

tedd wrote:

> rick said:
>
>> what if i proposed a "green" xml. transmitting bits requires energy. 
>> large character sets mean that you have to transmit more bits and 
>> thus use more energy and contribute to global warming. so in an 
>> effort to improve the green credentials of xml we should really try 
>> to get by on as few letters as possible. my suggestion would be a-z 
>> (you probably noticed my lack of interest in capitalisation), 0-9, 
>> some punctuation ., a few useful symbols <>&?[! and every culture 
>> (including latin languages) can adapt.
>>
>> :)
>>
>> oh, yeah - better add all the symbols needed for smileys - have to 
>> have priorities here.
>>
>> rick
>
>
>
> rick:
>
> And your point?
>
> 1. What you describe above, is what we have already done.
>
> 2. As for "green", we (English speaking countries) comprise 
> approximately 3 percent of the worlds population while consuming the 
> far more than our "fair" share of natural resources, and everything 
> else for that matter -- much like what we've done in number 1. 
> Something akin to fractals, large consumption pattern simply composed 
> of smaller repeating habits.
>
> 3. As for transmitting bits, larger char-sets do not mean larger 
> transmission. It only means that the scope of char-sets has been 
> expanded -- we cannot go back. It cost as much to say 8-bits in Latin 
> as it does to say 8-bits in Chinese.
>
> tedd




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