OpenEuphoria

Re: code pages I think

• Posted by rforno at tutopia.com May 20, 2001
• 513 views

Gerado:
I totally agree. But I know a lot of programmers/analysts who do not behave
this way, and then havoc crops up.
I am now retired, but a year ago I was working as an analyst/programmer for
the Argentine Tax Office (DGI), and always put most care in my programs, so
I rarely had any problem. An error not only would mean a loss, but also many
troubles for the taxpayer and other co-workers.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gerardo" <gebrandariz at YAHOO.COM>
To: "EUforum" <EUforum at topica.com>
Subject: Re: code pages I think


>
>
> Kat,
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Kat" <gertie at PELL.NET>
> To: "EUforum" <EUforum at topica.com>
> Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2001 5:16 AM
> Subject: Re: code pages I think
>
>
> > Ok.....
> >
> > If i understand right, Igor and Geraldo are saying this: If i recieve
> something
> > in a cyrilic font, Russian, Greek, Hebrew, or whatever,, as long as i
know
> > that a byte of (for invented instance) 203 = a certain character in the
> sender's
> > language, then as long as i keep that byte associated with that
knowledge,
> > even if i do not have that codepage, i can use that information to know
> what
> > that letter, and word, and paragraph, mean, despite what they display
as.
> As
> > a second for instance, more real than the first, the Russian text i
> > copy/pasted to Igor came from IE5 where it looked cyrilic, and i pasted
it
> to
> > Pegasus, which gives me apparently zero control of the font language
> > families, and in Pegasus it was that collection of lantinik vowels with
> > superscripts. Igor, i hope, read it as "thanks" in his native language's
> > codepage. Now, if i knew the capital 'A' with a certain superscript was
> the
> > same as the (for instance) 4th character of the Russian alphabet, then
it
> > would be possible for me, or a program, to read the Russian that's
> displayed
> > with the wrong code,, because to the program, it's just a byte, an index
> into
> > the font table. The display is to present a standard visual interface to
> > humans,, and could just as likely be read properly with totally random
> chars,
> > as long as *i* knew how the characters represented the Russian
characters.
> > The same byte, associated with another code page, would be interpreted
as
> > some other character, but be displayed the same in the same wrong
> > codepage. Like how 39d = 27h = 47o = 100111b.
> >
> > Is this correct?
> >
> > Kat
>
> As Igor already said, you're absolutely in the right. The catchword is
> translation, just as you translate between your ascii and ansi settings,
say
> CP850 vs. CP1252. This is what prompted the development of Unicode, only
> Unicode, like Ada, wound up being a solution more complex than the
problem.
> Sad.
>
> Let me add a personal thought, relevant to programming for others (and not
> just for our own enjoyment and illustration). I believe that a program
> should either be so simple and straightforward that nothing could possibly
> affect it, or should give the user the opportunity to fiddle with every
> setting until it looks and works right. Anything in between will work
until
> it doesn't, period.
>
> Remember Kant's moral imperative (say what? shut up and go get your
> encyclopedia): do everything as if it could become a general rule. That
is,
> every program should behave as if lives depended on it. Think of medical
> apps, of air control software, whatever example chills your bones best.
I'm
> working for the local stock exchange, where a real mistake might mean
> millions of dollars, and there's no such thing as 'oops, sorry.'
>
> Hard work, ain't it?
>
> Gerardo
>
>
>
>
>
>
>