On Friday, May 2, 2014 8:09:44 AM UTC+5:30, Ben Finney wrote: > Rustom Mody writes:
> > Yes, the headaches go a little further back than Unicode. > Okay, so can you change your article to reflect the fact that the > headaches both pre-date Unicode, and are made much easier by Unicode? Predate: Yes Made easier: No > > There is a certain large old book... > Ah yes, the neo-Sumerian story "Enmerkar_and_the_Lord_of_Aratta" > <URL:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enmerkar_and_the_Lord_of_Aratta>. > Probably inspired by stories older than that, of course. Thanks for that link > > In which is described the building of a 'tower that reached up to heaven'... > > At which point 'it was decided'ΒΆ to do something to prevent that. > > And our headaches started. > And other myths with fantastic reasons for the diversity of language > <URL:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythical_origins_of_language>. This one takes the cake - see 1st para http://hilgart.org/enformy/BronsonRekindling.pdf > > I never knew of any of this in the good ol days of ASCII > Yes, by ignoring all other writing systems except one's own - and > thereby excluding most of the world's people - the system can be made > simpler. > Hopefully the proportion of programmers who still feel they can make > such a parochial choice is rapidly shrinking. See link above: Ethnic differences and chauvinism are invariably linked -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
