From: Asmus Freytag (asmusf@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Mon Jan 22 2007 - 13:42:44 CST
The very real problem with introducing additional text formats is data loss.
Even if data *can* be translated losslessly between formats, the fact
is, there will be one point in the pipeline that's missing the
definition of just the one format that data happens to be in.
That was the reason why someone earlier in this discussion pointed out
that there is a pressure for tools and applications to support *all*
formats. Anytime a new format gets released into the wild it adds to
that pressure.
Implementation-internal formats may work in closed architectures, but
what architecture is truly closed today? Therefore,
implementation-internal formats are by-and-large transient. Which means,
any benefit derived from their use is offset by the cost of converting
into and out of them (and it's the application that has to pay that cost).
However, you may state as a law, if you'd like, that the fascination of
creating new encoding forms is about inversely proportional to their
utility, and that would account for the fact that even though the
addition of a new encoding form is a net *detriment* to the overall
users of character encodings, the process seems to have a
self-sustaining momentum.
Cheers,
A./
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