Re: 10646, UTF-2, etc.

> > ...You can always write code that
> > depends on details, if you try.  The point is that if you make a modest
> > effort to write clean code, then 16 bits vs 32 bits *is* a detail...
> >  Avoiding a few inappropriate practices ... suffices to
> > make code independent of this particular detail.
> You are too much pedantic.
> People in the real world does not think so.
What's "real world"?  How about application code that runs, unchanged,
on everything from ATs to Crays, at thousands of sites?  Code that
didn't have to change -- not one line -- when its development machines
went from 16 to 32 bits, and hundreds or thousands of variables changed
width as a result?

If people in the "real world" think this is impossible, they are mistaken.
The above example is not imaginary.  It wasn't even particularly hard.
You really need only a little bit of attention and practice to achieve
this level of independence of details.

More detail can be found in "#ifdef Considered Harmful", by Spencer&Collyer,
in the summer 1992 Usenix conference proceedings.

(Steve Summit said most of what I wanted to say about these issues, but
this one item was just a little bit much.)

                                         Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
                                          
henry(_at_)zoo(_dot_)toronto(_dot_)edu   utzoo!henry