Why UTF-8/16 character encodings?

[Peter Alexander]

On Saturday, 25 May 2013 at 14:58:02 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> On Saturday, 25 May 2013 at 14:16:21 UTC, Peter Alexander wrote:
>> I suggest you read up on UTF-8. You really don't understand 
>> it. There is no need to decode, you just treat the UTF-8 
>> string as if it is an ASCII string.
> Not being aware of this shortcut doesn't mean not understanding 
> UTF-8.

It's not just a shortcut, it is absolutely fundamental to the 
design of UTF-8. It's like saying you understand Lisp without 
being aware that everything is a list.

Also, you continuously keep stating disadvantages to UTF-8 that 
are completely false, like "slicing does require decoding". 
Again, completely missing the point of UTF-8. I cannot conceive 
how you can claim to understand how UTF-8 works yet repeatedly 
demonstrating that you do not.

You are either ignorant or a successful troll. In either case, 
I'm done here.