Why UTF-8/16 character encodings?

[Walter Bright]

On 5/29/2013 2:42 AM, Jakob Ovrum wrote:
> On Monday, 27 May 2013 at 23:05:46 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>> I've recently come to the opinion that that's a bad idea, and D should not
>> support it.
>
> Honestly, removing support for non-ASCII characters from identifiers is the
> worst idea you've had in a while. There is an _unfathomable amount_ of code out
> there written in non-English languages but hamfisted into an English-alphabet
> representation because the programming language doesn't care to support it. The
> resulting friction is considerable.
>
> You seem to attribute particular value to personal anecdotes, so here's one of
> mine: I personally know several prestigious universities in Europe and Asia
> which teach programming using Java and/or C with identifiers being in an
> English-alphabet representation of the native non-English language. Using the
> English language for identifiers is usually a sanctioned alternative, but not
> the primary modus operandi. I also know several professional programmers using
> their native non-English language for identifiers in production code.
>
> Please reconsider.

I still think it's a bad idea, but it's obvious people want it in D, so it'll stay.

(Also note that I meant using ASCII, not necessarily english.)