Re: [boost] [general] What will string handling in C++ look like in the future [was Always treat ... ]

Subject: Re: [boost] [general] What will string handling in C++ look like in the future [was Always treat ... ]
From: Chad Nelson (chad.thecomfychair_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-01-19 14:25:52

On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 09:06:52 -0500
Ian Emmons <iemmons_at_[hidden]> wrote:

>> This is simply not going to happen.  How could MS even go about
>> doing this in Windows?  It would make very single piece of Windows
>> software incompatible with the next version!
>
> There is a straightforward way for Microsoft to migrate Windows to
> this future:  If they add UTF-8 support to their narrow character
> interface [...] then I believe we could treat POSIX and Windows
> identically from an encoding point of view. Then Microsoft would be
> free deprecate their wide character interface over an extended period
> of time, if they so chose.

And if the developers at Microsoft controlled the company, this would
probably already be underway, if not completed. :-) But Microsoft is
controlled by management, which answers to investors, who want them to
squeeze as much money out of their customers as they can.
Interoperability that makes programmers able to take a Windows program
and easily port it to some other OS is a very *bad* thing, from their
point of view -- anything that locks people into using Windows is far
preferable.

Market forces might coerce them into allowing it someday, as they
have coerced them to making Internet Explorer more standards-compliant,
but they'll fight it tooth and nail.
-- 
Chad Nelson
Oak Circle Software, Inc.
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