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Subject: Re: unicode
Date: Mon, 07 Nov 2011 19:18:03 -0800
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On 11/7/2011 6:30 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> You asked what problem it solves.
>
> Now you know what problem it solves.
>
> You still do not think it is a serious problem, but that is
> a different discussion.


No, I disagree with that assertion.  If it's not an actual use case, 
something that doesn't actually come from a user, or solve a real user 
need, then it's just a pointless maintenance expense.  Just like any 
other "feature" that nobody needs or uses, it can just be removed.


> Once put in the language, then they can never remove it without breaking
> existing code.


My understand about these things is that they grep (*) through the code 
base of the most important customers and do an evaluation of the code 
changes required.  The question is "can we afford to make the changes 
this would require?"  It's a ROI question, not slavish devotion to 
backwards compatibility.  Yes the holy grail is "no code changes 
required" but that isn't a given, necessarily.  Sometimes you gotta 
break those eggs to make your omelet.



(*) Figuratively.  Not necessarily use the grep program.  It's a code 
inspection process.