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Groups > comp.lang.java.programmer > #25778

Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals?

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On Fri, 04 Feb 2011 17:02:37 -0800, Mike Schilling wrote:

> "Arne Vajhøj" <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote in message
> news:4d4ca055$0$23765$14726298@news.sunsite.dk...
>> On 04-02-2011 19:37, Mike Schilling wrote:
>>> "Joshua Cranmer" <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> wrote in message
>>> news:iii493$nn8$1@news.eternal-september.org...
>>>> On 02/04/2011 05:26 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>>>> In message<iigcva$90q$1@news.eternal-september.org>, Mike Schilling
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Yes, it does (contain 16 bits.)
>>>>>
>>>>> Yeah, I didn’t realize it was spelled out that way in the original
>>>>> language
>>>>> spec. What a short-sighted decision.
>>>>
>>>> It would have been stupider to have not specified a guaranteed size
>>>> for char. Take C (+ POSIX), where the definitions of sizes are very
>>>> loosely defined, and you very quickly get non-portable code. Yes, you
>>>> can in theory change the size of, say, time_t independently of other
>>>> types, but it doesn't do you much good if half the C code assumes
>>>> sizeof(time_t) == sizeof(int). Pinning down the sizes of the types
>>>> was a _very good_ move on Java's part.
>>>>
>>>>> Why was there a need to define the size of a character at all? Even
>>>>> in the
>>>>> early days of the unification of Unicode and ISO-10646, there was
>>>>> already
>>>>> provision for UCS-4. Did they really think that could safely be
>>>>> ignored?
>>>>
>>>> Knowing the results of other properly Unicode-aware code in the first
>>>> days of Unicode, I believe that Unicode quite heavily gave an
>>>> impression of "Unicode == 16 bit". Java is not the only major
>>>> platform to be bitten by now-Unicode-is-32-bits... the Windows
>>>> platform has 16-bit characters embedded into it.
>>>
>>> .NET, which in several cases took advantage of following Java to
>>> correct some of its mistakes (e.g. signed bytes), didn’t fix this one.
>>
>> Which is a bit surprising since high code points were introduced when
>> .NET came around.
>>
>> But they probably had a compatibility issue with p/Invoke and Win32
>> API, COM interop, C++ mixed mode etc. that all had to work with
>> existing Win32 model of 16 bit wchars.
> 
> Or, relentless micro-optimizers that they are, Microsoft wasn't willing
> to bite off the size/performance issues.

Relentless micro-optimizers of what, their cashflow?

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Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@geek-central.gen.new_zealand> - 2011-02-04 19:59 +1300
  Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? "Mike Schilling" <mscottschilling@hotmail.com> - 2011-02-04 17:02 -0800
    Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? Ken Wesson <kwesson@gmail.com> - 2011-02-05 04:21 +0100
  Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2011-02-04 19:05 -0500
    Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-02-04 19:56 -0500
    Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? "Mike Schilling" <mscottschilling@hotmail.com> - 2011-02-04 16:37 -0800
  Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? "Mike Schilling" <mscottschilling@hotmail.com> - 2011-02-04 00:22 -0800
    Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2011-02-04 15:03 -0800
    Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-02-04 18:04 -0500
    Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? Lew <noone@lewscanon.com> - 2011-02-04 07:49 -0500
    Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@geek-central.gen.new_zealand> - 2011-02-05 11:26 +1300
  Re: Efficient unicode string implementation was: Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2011-02-04 19:13 -0500
    Re: Efficient unicode string implementation was: Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-02-04 20:08 -0500
  Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? Daniele Futtorovic <da.futt.news@laposte.net.invalid> - 2011-02-04 18:37 +0100
    Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? markspace <nospam@nowhere.com> - 2011-02-04 11:27 -0800
  Re: Efficient unicode string implementation was: Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2011-02-04 17:28 -0500
  Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? "Mike Schilling" <mscottschilling@hotmail.com> - 2011-02-04 09:10 -0800
    Re: Efficient unicode string implementation was: Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2011-02-04 15:22 -0800
      Re: Efficient unicode string implementation was: Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-02-04 18:41 -0500
    Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-02-04 18:12 -0500
    Efficient unicode string implementation was: Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? Tom Anderson <twic@urchin.earth.li> - 2011-02-04 21:30 +0000
      Re: Efficient unicode string implementation was: Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? Ken Wesson <kwesson@gmail.com> - 2011-02-05 04:25 +0100
    Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-02-04 12:33 -0500
    Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2011-02-04 13:44 -0500
      Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2011-02-04 15:08 -0800
  Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? Lew <lew@lewscanon.com> - 2011-02-04 12:43 -0800
  Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-02-04 10:49 -0500
  Re: Why No Supplemental Characters In Character Literals? Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2011-02-04 08:04 -0500

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