Subject: Re: support for symbolic names

From: [email-masked] (Erik M. van der Poel)
Date: Wed, 22 Jan 92 09:11:12 +0900

> My assumption has been that this discussion is about portability of
> the localized programs....
> 
> If we are talking about internationalized program, neither
> '<540404>' nor LOWER_O_SLASH should appear in it.  Only characters
> that can appear in the internationalized program are from
> the basic character set.  If you have LOWER_O_SLASH in your
> program, the program is not global. It is limited to the execution
> environment where such a character is available.

Imagine a super-internationalized email composer. I want to write mail
to Keld Jo/rn Simonsen, and I want to type the o-slash "properly". I
bring up the character menu, and select o-slash. Voila`, o-slash at
your service.

Of course, we will need better email standards (these are being worked
on as we speak), making use of such ISO standards as 10646 (if it ever
materializes) or even 2022 (already fully established in some
countries). The "availability of a character in an execution
environment" reduces to either the availability of such a font or the
availability of memory to load such a font.

Cheers,
Erik