off-topic...
The DBCS interview question isn't asked so much anymore, I hear.
My personal favorite question has been to describe composed/decomposed
characters then ask the poor applicant to outline how you implement
searching, do the equivalence right, and do it efficiently. Unless they've
seen the problem before (unlikely in current undergrad curricula), it really
sorts out the chaff. The one question usually takes the entire technical
part of the interview.
I'm not giving anything away because I don't know anyone else who asks this
one (or can do it), and I'm not doing any more interviews :-).
--- Paul Chase Dempsey
Microsoft Visual Studio Text Editor Development
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Murray Sargent [mailto:murrays@microsoft.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2000 5:55 PM
> To: Unicode List
> Cc: Unicode List
> Subject: RE: Double Byte enabled
>
>
> "Double-byte enabled" is very different from "Unicode
> enabled". The former
> refers to apps that can navigate, maybe edit, and display
> DBCS text such as
> Shift-JIS. Typically the ASCII characters in a DBCS
> character repertoire
> are represented by single bytes and most, if not all, other
> characters are
> represented by a lead byte followed by a trail byte. So you
> have a mix of
> single and double byte characters. It gets particularly
> tricky, since some
> lead bytes can also be trail bytes. Accordingly if you land
> in the middle
> of the text it can be tricky to figure out where a character
> boundary is
> (finding it used to be a favorite interview question at Microsoft).
>
> In your document, it would be better to say something about
> making sure
> applications are Unicode enabled. Double-byte enabling used to be
> desirable, but now it should only be needed for import/export code.
>
> Murray
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Suzanne Topping [SMTP:stopping@rochester.rr.com]
> > Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2000 2:45 PM
> > To: Unicode List
> > Subject: Double Byte enabled
> >
> > Question for y'all:
> >
> > Does the term "double-byte enabled" accurately describe
> Unicode-based
> > apps?
> > Seems antiquated and inaccurate.
> >
> > I'm editing a document which says something about making
> sure applications
> > are double-byte enabled, and I'd like to come up with a
> more appropriate
> > and
> > current phrase.
> >
> > I assume there is a better term, but I can't think of what
> has really
> > replaced it. Perhaps even "multi-byte enabled"?
> >
> > Any ideas?
> >
> > --++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> > Suzanne Topping
> > Localization Unlimited
> > (Globalization Process Improvement Consulting and Training)
> >
> > In association with BizWonk (TM)
> >
> > Phone: 716-473-0791
> > Fax: 716-231-2013
> > Email: stopping@rochester.rr.com
> >
> > (Send me an email to join the North East Localization
> Special Interest
> > Group, an email distribution list which acts as a
> discussion forum for
> > localization issues.)
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jul 10 2001 - 17:21:00 EDT