Re: Fixed length data types issue

mark@mark.mielke.cc wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 08, 2006 at 02:39:03PM -0400, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
> > mark@mark.mielke.cc wrote:
> > > I think I've been involved in a discussion like this in the past. Was
> > > it mentioned in this list before? Yes the UTF-8 vs UTF-16 encoding
> > > means that UTF-8 applications are at a disadvantage when using the
> > > library. UTF-16 is considered more efficient to work with for everybody
> > > except ASCII users. :-)
> > Uh, is it?  By whom?  And why?
> 
> The authors of the library in question? Java? Anybody whose primary
> alphabet isn't LATIN1 based? :-)

Well, for Latin-9 alphabets, Latin-9 is still more space-efficient than
UTF-8.  That covers a lot of the world.  Forcing those people to change
to UTF-16 does not strike me as a very good idea.

But Martijn already clarified that ICU does not actually force you to
switch everything to UTF-16, so this is not an issue anyway.

> Only ASCII values store more space efficiently in UTF-8. All values
> over 127 store more space efficiently using UTF-16. UTF-16 is easier
> to process. UTF-8 requires too many bit checks with single character
> offsets. I'm not an expert - I had this question before a year or two
> ago, and read up on the ideas of experts.

Well, I was not asking about "UTF-8 vs UTF-16," but rather "anything vs.
UTF-16".  I don't much like UTF-8 myself, but that's not a very informed
opinion, just like a feeling of "fly-killing-cannon" (when it's used to
store Latin-9-fitting text).

-- 
Alvaro Herrera                                http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
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