Re: [idn] Expected handling of labels

[Dan Oscarsson <Dan.Oscarsson@trab.se>]

D. J. Bernstein wrote:

>Okay. Here are three examples of well-known case-sensitive databases
>that you probably use every day:
>
>   * The UNIX password list, accessed by account name.
>   * The UNIX filesystem, accessed by filename.
>   * The World Wide Web, accessed by URL.
>
>Do you find yourself trying to log into your computer as ``dAn'' rather
>than ``dan'' and wondering why it doesn't work? Have you been screaming
>at the UNIX filesystem designers, telling them that they need nameprep?
>How about W3C?

You quite often lears to bypass defect interfaces and quit complaining
after a while. Though you still dislike it.

Yes, Unix is one system full of bad designs. You have to learn to live
with it
and always type your account name of file names using the exact case
stored in the system (but you do not have to use lower case always).
URLs have always been case-insensitive on my web even though the server
is running under Unix. Much easier for the users!



>``But it's confusing when I have separate objects named foo and Foo!''
>you say. That's why people rarely set up such objects: they choose names
>that _won't_ be confused.

Yes and when using case-sensitive systems you probably should avoid
having
to names only different in case in the same scope. But you want to
use different case to enhance readability.

I use mixed case in my Unix filesystem to enhance readability.
I use tcsh which can compleate file names ignoring case.
I would be much nicer it the file system was case-insensitive.

Some want their host name or URL to contain mixed case because
it corresponds to their trademark or makes the meaning clearer.


>The clincher is the fact that, if we set up case-insensitivity for
>non-ASCII characters, we'll never be able to escape. We'll have to
>suffer the costs of supporting it forever. In contrast, if we take the
>conservative IDNC3 approach, we'll still have the option of adding
>case-insensitivity later, _if_ it turns out to be necessary.

Actually case-insensitivity for many Latin based letters can easily
be handled without a large cost. One thing that could be done
is to avoid the difficult cases from the beginning.

One important question is:
Is it more important to lower the cost of software then to
lower the cost of the human - computer interface?

From what I have seen the cost of increased human time to handle
difficlut interfaces is very much more costly than fixing
software.

   Dan