Xref: utzoo comp.sys.ibm.pc:16941 comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d:520 comp.emacs:3761 Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!husc6!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff From: tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d,comp.emacs Subject: Re: US PC programmers still live in a 7-bit world! Summary: the insular perspective Message-ID: <5344@dasys1.UUCP> Date: 5 Jul 88 18:09:26 GMT References: <1988Jun22.223158.1366@LTH.Se> Reply-To: tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff) Organization: Independent Users Guild Lines: 39 In article <1988Jun22.223158.1366@LTH.Se> torsten@DNA.LTH.Se (Torsten Olsson) bellyaches: >US PC programmers still live in a 7-bit world! > >But we don't! Not one but two meaningless generalizations. US PC programmers live in a multitude of "worlds," 7-, 8-bit and otherwise. >All right, you get a lot of credit for producing lovely programs >like uEmacs, Picnix, Tcless, and the like. This is what passes for PC programming in Europe? Unix ports and clones? Take a look at BRIEF, PC-WRITE, MKS Toolkit and LIST.COM sometime. Blame Unix for 7-bit parochialism if you want, not PC programmers. > [then lists some characters] >So, if your pet program is to become our pet, too, you have >to rethink concerning using the 8th bit as a flag, you have >to rewrite toupper, tolower, word scan, delete word, word >counters and the like. On the other hand, if you don't give a damn whether your program makes the grade in Sweden or not, you can stick with what you're doing, or publish the source and let Swedish programmers keep Swedish users happy while we do the same here. Just a thought. :-) In the meantime, if you have a complaint about the way some specific programs behave, write the authors. Thanks for the reminder about the international character set, but I imagine most people (short of the Unix clonesters, whom you seem to rely on unduly) either give it to you for free (per the examples above) or have good reasons to abandon it in favor of a performance tradeoff. -- Tom Neff UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff "None of your toys CIS: 76556,2536 MCI: TNEFF will function..." GEnie: TOMNEFF BIX: t.neff (no kidding)