p576spz@mpirbn.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de (S.Petra Zeidler) (07/22/90)
In article <1990Jul21.174535.8281@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> scs@lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) writes: >Hey, news is ASCII-based, written in english-speaking countries for >english-speaking readers. Hey back, I don't think so at all; if I read the authors' names and origins, it seems to me that no mean part of postings to the world-wide newsgroups is NOT written in English-spoken countries. It is the US American "We Are The World, all the others are just the miserable exotic rest" attitude all over again. Believe me, there is a world, and yes, even netting outside of the US (ever heard of eunet for example ?). As to the language problem: It would be really nice to be able to write ones name, adress, etc without tricks, but it's no issue that really bites. Even eunet, which is a LOT more conscient of the existance of other languages, has chosen English for common language, simply because it is the most widely understood; on dnet (German news net) you'll get flamed for not posting in German unless it's a crosspost. Writing German with the English (American) character set is a pain. Writing French or some Scandinavian language must be a major pain. To what amounts would the cost of changing to 8 bit be ? Would it be the transition of maintenance barely affordable to not affordable ?? It is nice to have the net around, lacking letters or no. Greetings, spz --- spz@specklec.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de or spz@mpirbn.uucp or universe!local-cluster!milky-way!orionis-arm!sol!earth!uunet!unido!mpirbn!spz = S.Petra Zeidler | ... in the midst of your laughter and glee, Auf dem Huegel 69 | you will softly and suddenly vanish away, 5300 Bonn 1, FRG | and never be met with again.
kono@csl.sony.co.jp (Shinji Kono) (07/22/90)
As you imagine, Japanese computer scientists use Japanese in a modified B-NEWS system. We are using 16bit for one char, but modification is not so large in B-NEWS itself. This is because we are using escape sequence system. For example, <esc> $ @ 16bit Japanese Introducing <esc> ( B ASCII Introducing. For me, "$B$3$s$K$A$O(J" means "hello" in Japanese. But in U.S. most of you cannot read this EVEN IN PROPER JAPANESE CHARACTER TERMINAL. This is because your BNEWS system eats <esc>. Quite simple problem. In article <1092@mpirbn.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de> , p576spz@mpirbn.UUCP (S.Petra Zeidler)writes > To what amounts would the cost of changing to 8 bit be ? > Would it be the transition of maintenance barely affordable to not affordable ?? If you use proper Introducing Sequence ( for example again, <esc> ( H for swedish, <esc> ( J for Japanese Latin ), clearly changes for BNEWS are very small. And you can write Franch, Japanese and German in one line. But News Reader programs such as rn needs a lot of changes but it is possible. As official communication codes in B-News, 7bits char and ISO Introducing Sequences system is best choice I think. BTW, What do you mean in 8bit char? If it means IBM-PC's system, I don't like it. I think it is not difficult to write 7bit French to 8bit IBM-PC. But many Unix programs (Ex. sendmail, grep, tip, roff or PostScript) simply cut off 8th bit. Personally I think these programs should accept 8bit char and it is good for us. But usually 7bit with Introducing sequence is easy to use in Unix. -------- Shinji Kono $B2OLn??<#(J Sony Computer Science Laboratory, Inc.: kono@csl.sony.co.jp
gamiddle@maytag.waterloo.edu (Guy Middleton) (07/23/90)
In article <1092@mpirbn.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de> p576spz@mpirbn.UUCP (S.Petra Zeidler) writes: > In article <1990Jul21.174535.8281@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> scs@lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) writes: > >Hey, news is ASCII-based, written in english-speaking countries for > >english-speaking readers. > > I don't think so at all; if I read the authors' names and origins, it seems to > me that no mean part of postings to the world-wide newsgroups is NOT written > in English-spoken countries. Steve was not talking about postings; he meant that the software was written by English-speakers.
scs@iti.org (Steve Simmons) (07/23/90)
In article <1990Jul21.174535.8281@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> scs@lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) (me at home) writes: >Hey, news is ASCII-based, written in english-speaking countries for >english-speaking readers. p576spz@mpirbn.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de (S.Petra Zeidler) writes: >Hey back, >I don't think so at all; if I read the authors' names and origins, it seems to >me that no mean part of postings to the world-wide newsgroups is NOT written >in English-spoken countries. >It is the US American "We Are The World, all the others are just the miserable >exotic rest" attitude all over again. >Believe me, there is a world, and yes, even netting outside of the US >(ever heard of eunet for example ?). You missed my point. News was written by a couple of guys from Duke and some other university so they could exchange stuff, and grew from there. If you want to assume using ASCII and English between those two sites was deliberate ethnocentricism, go right ahead. Whingeing and moaning about the failure of free software developed by english speakers using American standards for their own use to meet the regional needs of non-English speaking populations is not productive. I support the idea of removing the ANSI/ASCII/ISO character set restrictions from a news-like system, and look with interest towards the day it gets here. I don't support the idea that adding one bit to the character set will solve the problems, and reiterate the statement that without some degree of backwards compatibility (gatewaying, whathaveyou) it will not succeed for a long time.
fitz@wang.com (Tom Fitzgerald) (07/24/90)
p576spz@mpirbn.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de (S.Petra Zeidler) writes: > It is the US American "We Are The World, all the others are just the > miserable exotic rest" attitude all over again. > Believe me, there is a world, and yes, even netting outside of the US Yes, we know. I've heard that song before, but you really should start from the beginning: Eu: What a great peice of software! I want to run it on my machine in Europe, can I have a copy? Am: But it was written as a quick hack for an American environment, and it has hard-coded English strings in it and... Eu: That's OK, it's worth it, I want it anyway. Am: But it uses 12-hour time and a 7-bit character set and has hard-coded case-conversion tables. Really, it was a quick hack that I wrote on my own time and give away for free. The real version will have... Eu: That's OK, I can use it right now, it's worth it. Am: OK, here it is. <later> Eu2: What a great peice of software! How translatable is it? Eu: Not at all. Damn Americans don't know how to code for the International marketplace. This has happened with everybody's favorite word processing software, networks, e-mail and now news. It would be wonderful if all this stuff was perfectly configurable for all national environments, but when you're doing a quick hack because you need to get things between a few machines in the same neighborhood, or you need to get a peice of software out the door before the venture capital runs out, things like this get put off until the second pass. Software has an American orientation because most of it was written by Americans, and most of the marketplace was American. I'm quite aware this is less true than it was, and soon won't be true at all, and this is a good thing. Historical vistiges remain. The best way to help this along is to work on the patches that the news software, for one, will need to be international. --- Tom Fitzgerald Wang Labs fitz@wang.com 1-508-967-5278 Lowell MA, USA ...!uunet!wang!fitz
davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) (07/25/90)
In article <1092@mpirbn.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de> p576spz@mpirbn.UUCP (S.Petra Zeidler) writes: | In article <1990Jul21.174535.8281@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> scs@lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) writes: | >Hey, news is ASCII-based, written in english-speaking countries for | >english-speaking readers. | | Hey back, | I don't think so at all; if I read the authors' names and origins, it seems to | me that no mean part of postings to the world-wide newsgroups is NOT written | in English-spoken countries. I think you are confusing authors with posters. The authors are the people who wrote wrote news and gave it away. Posters are people who can't write anything but flames, and complain about the craftmanship when they have trouble using a screwdriver for a pipe wrench. | It is the US American "We Are The World, all the others are just the miserable | exotic rest" attitude all over again. Here's the heart of it, news was developed in the USA, for use in the USA, and given to the rest of the world. Now people who have contributed nothing are not just politely saying that the situation could be improved, but rudely saying that Americans have an attitude problem. | Believe me, there is a world, and yes, even netting outside of the US | (ever heard of eunet for example ?). What sites give away the eunet software, and if it's so much better than usenet software, why isn't everyone using it? Could it be that eunet runs on American software? If the people with the problem would concentrate on either (a) writing their own software instead of complaining about what we gave them, or (b) contributing some technical insight to the problem instead of posting rambling flames about how bad American attitudes and software are, the problem might get solved sooner. As far as I know the only character which doesn't go through news in eight bit format is escape, because that messes up a lot of terminals. News sent via uucp can (and does in most cases) go in compressed format, using eight bit paths. The technical issues are in readers and display devices, where ASCII displays need the high bit filtered to prevent assorted bad effects. 8 bit data <-- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me
emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) (07/25/90)
In article <1092@mpirbn.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de> p576spz@mpirbn.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de (S.Petra Zeidler) writes:
Even eunet, which is a LOT more conscient of the existance of other
languages, has chosen English for common language, simply because
it is the most widely understood; on dnet (German news net) you'll
get flamed for not posting in German unless it's a crosspost.
Writing German with the English (American) character set is a pain.
I'm getting a full feed of dnet.* and sub.* (the German groups) so
I've tried to follow the interminable discussions about how Umlauts
should be represented on those groups. So you can get flamed for
any number of reasons, not just choice of langauge.
When dnet and sub start sending around umlauts encoded as iso 8859-1,
I'll make an effort to install software that accomodates them.
Writing French or some Scandinavian language must be a major pain.
The French just got rid of a few diacritics, didn't they?
To what amounts would the cost of changing to 8 bit be ? Would it
be the transition of maintenance barely affordable to not
affordable ??
I don't think the change would be too substantial for the news transport
software. The news readers, esp. people using 7-bit terminals or
terminal emulators, might need more hard work.
--Ed
Edward Vielmetti, U of Michigan math dept <emv@math.lsa.umich.edu>
comp.archives moderator