🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <23303A@erik.naggum.no>, enag@ifi.uio.no (Erik Naggum) wrote:
> 
> Markus Kuhn <mskuhn@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de> writes:
> |
> |   What means UCS (after ISO 10646) in Erik Naggum's .sig? United Character
> |   Set? What other terms are defined in ISO 10646 (MBP, ...)?
> 
> That's the abbreviation after the standard's full name, which is (was,
> at DIS stage, anyway):
> 
> 	Information technology -- Universal Multiple-Octet Coded
> 	Character Set (UCS)
> 
> I seem to remember that somebody wanted "multiple-octet" removed from
> the title.  Anybody else know the details on this?
> 

I don't know if it came up at WG2 in Seoul, but it did come up at X3L2 last
month.  
I'd have to actually dig through my list of country comments to see if
anybody in fact suggested the name change (I believe somebody did), but I'm
too lazy to do that right now.  

The problem with the name "multiple-octet" is that it implies that 10646
text can be processed as a series of bytes instead of as a series of words
or longwords.  This can be disastrous in C because of the NUL octets in
some character codes.   Changing the name to avoid this implication would
be nice, but ISO regulations would consider changing the standard's name a
major revision, which would require a third ballot, and *nobody* wanted a
third ballot. 

John H. Jenkins
John_Jenkins@taligent.com