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From: df@sei.cmu.edu (Dan Farmer)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: ALED goes to the wastebasket here in Iceland
Message-ID: <27155@as0c.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: 17 Jun 91 20:47:05 GMT
References: <27139@as0c.sei.cmu.edu> <1991Jun17.195900.9526@uwasa.fi>
Sender: netnews@sei.cmu.edu
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In article <1991Jun17.195900.9526@uwasa.fi>, ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) writes:
> In article <27139@as0c.sei.cmu.edu> df@sei.cmu.edu (Dan Farmer) writes:
> >  Trash to you, not to me, and not to tens of millions of PC users.
> >I might, someday, use the 8th bit support of an editor, but I'm not
> >holding my breath.  Just like your editor you proposed above wouldn't
> One thought on this, if I may.  Don't you ever draw boxes with your
> editor.

  Nope... not like I think you mean, at least.  I'll sometimes use
the pipe sign "|" and minus and underscore characters to do it.

> If you do, you need the 8-bit characters whatever your
> nationality.  Likewise, don't you ever use any of the (scanty)
> mathematical symbols in the upper ascii.

  Sorry, I don't.  I use my pc mostly as a platform/gateway to connect
and to do things that will be used on the net.  So while if I want
to do boxes or whatever, chances are I'll use something that will
produce postscript output, or something gross like tbl.

> Even if the rest of the
> world is of little consequence to many U.S. programmers (if I've
> interpreted some of the arguments from the States correctly), why
> wouldn't this be a consideration in the 7-bit vs 8-bit dilemma.

  I'm not saying that programmers *should* ignore that last bit; I'm
just pointing out that a lot of the audience doesn't need it.  I'm
all for flexibility, extendibility, and in general a more generic/
broader approach to programming.  But don't say a program is bad
just because it doesn't do what you want.  An editor that displays
only greek characters does me no good whatsoever -- but it doesn't
mean it's "trash" because it's worthless to me.

 -- dan