On Mon, 11 Mar 2002 ned(_dot_)freed(_at_)mrochek(_dot_)com wrote:
It is only a problem in the sense that there's an operation you need to
perform
before you can compare id strings. Code I've written to do threading and such
as far back as the mid 80's does this...
However, news software has systematically ignored normalization and done a
simple string comparison since its beginnings even earlier. The only nod
it has ever made to normalization has been some degree of case-insensitive
comparison, and even that hasn't been entirely consistent. Compatibility
with the installed base is an issue that can't be ignored here.
Henry Spencer
henry(_at_)spsystems(_dot_)net