From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2011 18:34:58 +0200
From: tlaronde@polynum.com
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net>
Message-ID: <20110619163458.GA424@polynum.com>
References: <20110616121700.GA9131@polynum.com>
	<9556bc097d90b774c37c16af5a7c20eb@brasstown.quanstro.net>
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Subject: Re: [9fans] [RFC] fonts and unicode/utf [TeX]
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On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 10:07:19AM -0400, erik quanstrom wrote:
> >
> > Why latin1? Not only because, as a French, I use it, but because it is
> > compatible with unicode.
>
> perhaps you mean the subset of unicode corresponding to the codepoints
> encoded by latin1 encoded in utf-8.  the system character set is utf-8,
> and latin1 is not a compatable encoding.  utf-8 is assumed everwhere except
> when the data is inbound, and explicitly tagged as having a different
> caracter set.  programs like upas/fs and webfs do the conversion at the
> border.
>
> there's really no reason for latin1 in 2011.

There is a reason here: for now, TeX is 8 bits and that's all. So, if
allowing to use, at least, all of the 8 bits means something, it shall
be latin1. This does not prevent somebody to use whatever character set
one wants; but as a default, and _for now_, it's better than nothing;
and significantly better than some random character set that no tcs(1)
will know how to deal with.

To accept directly utf-8 as input will not be addressed for the 1.0
release of kerTeX.

And if people think that I'm too slow: be my guest. I claim it is easier
to tackle the task with kerTeX, than with TeXlive.
--
        Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
                      http://www.kergis.com/
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