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   mcc (mcc@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 09-Dec-2024 19:44:24 JST mcc

   A thing that frustrates me about programmers is when you are like "i want to do blah to this string" and they are like "you can't do that because it is utf-8". Can't??? Don't you mean "that will be extra work because it is utf-8"?? A related problem is when people talking about operations on UTF-8 forget or pretend to forget that there are complexity classes between O(1) and O(N). "You can't do that in O(1)" Correct "That's O(N)" that is not the same thing and you know it!!!

   • Embed this notice
     mcc (mcc@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 09-Dec-2024 19:44:21 JST mcc

     in reply to

     • Peter Brett
     • David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)

     @krans @david_chisnall Okay so I'm not going to claim that what I'm about to suggest is trivial, but this is what I did: I located some liberal arts people with domain expertise and I listened to them.

     Rich Felker repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     mcc (mcc@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 09-Dec-2024 19:44:23 JST mcc

     in reply to

     • David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)

     @david_chisnall It's not that bad!!! It's easier than trying to read Unity documentation!!!

   • Embed this notice
     mcc (mcc@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 09-Dec-2024 19:44:23 JST mcc

     in reply to

     • David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)

     @david_chisnall The trick to Unicode is to simply do correct things. You just figure out what the correct things are, and then you do them. Most people who have problems with Unicode, it's because they did incorrect things. That was their first mistake.

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     Peter Brett (krans@mastodon.me.uk)'s status on Monday, 09-Dec-2024 19:44:23 JST Peter Brett

     in reply to

     • David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)

     @mcc Hah! #Unicode deals with human language and scripts, which are much more complicated, inconsistent and illogical than reasonably expected; and text handling is not something that seems to be taught anywhere by anyone.

     I guess the conclusion is that software engineers are just expected to learn how to Unicode correctly by collective telepathy? @david_chisnall

     Rich Felker repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*) (david_chisnall@infosec.exchange)'s status on Monday, 09-Dec-2024 19:44:24 JST David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)

     in reply to

     @mcc It’s not that you can’t do the thing with UTF-8, it’s that you can’t do the thing with UTF-8 and retain your sanity. You gaze too deeply into Unicode, lest Unicode gazes back into you.

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     Peter Brett (krans@mastodon.me.uk)'s status on Monday, 09-Dec-2024 19:44:30 JST Peter Brett

     in reply to

     • David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)

     @mcc Yes, this is very good advice! Also, reading Unicode Technical Reports is a great way to get detailed information about the relevant algorithms and technical best practice needed to put that domain expertise to use. @david_chisnall