>On 19 Sep 2000, Perl6 RFC Librarian wrote:
>> Distinguish packed binary data from printable strings
>What defines a "printable" string? What if I'm working in an environment
>that can "print" bytes that yours can't? Specifically I'm wondering how
>this proposal handles Unicode.
Perl should fly far and fast from starting down the bumpy road where
that data is strongly typed in the mythical and deceptive text-vs-binary
sense, for that path is one littered with the frustrations of a
legion of programmers stretching from the plodding mainframe operating
systems of our grandfathers to the toybox legacies of our less
fortunate brethren of today. Heed the wisdom of the Unix and the
song of the C: Let your data be simply data, homogenously clean.
To do otherwise is to suffer unending inanities and combinatoric
misconnects of noncongruent types.
--tom
