utf-7 encoding (Re: Howto: 32 bit skype, working with a webcam, on 64 bit Fedora 17)

[Ed Greshko]

On 10/22/2012 06:25 PM, Ian Malone wrote:
> On 22 October 2012 11:18, Tim <ignored_mailbox at yahoo.com.au> wrote:
>> Tim:
>>>> Discouraged by who?  It's supposedly *the* answer to email
>> Ed Greshko:
>>> UFT-7 isn't widely used....  But if you want to use it go ahead.
>> You said it's discouraged.  I've never seen any such comment.  Where do
>> you find that advice?
>>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-7#cite_note-0
> http://www.imc.org/imcr-010.html
> "It should be noted that the Unicode Standard also defines the UTF-7
> charset, which was intended for Internet mail. However, MIME is quite
> capable of carrying UTF-8, and UTF-8 is expected to be used in many
> protocols, not just Internet mail. Fortunately, very few vendors
> implemented UTF-7, and its use is strongly discouraged in Internet
> mail."
>
> Essentially it was never a great solution to the problem it was
> supposed to address (didn't really beat existing methods, UTF-8 in
> MIME generally turned out to be better). Still, whatever reader Marko
> is using should be able to handle it, if it is GMail then it's a bug
> in that.
>

And, taking email out of the equation, the UTF-7 doesn't display correctly within the Fedora Archives.  So, anyone using special characters that need to be *encoded* in UTF-7 will appear "unreadable" in the archives.  So, if you use = and _ , etc it will be garbage to most people.  Not very friendly for users of the archive.  IMHO.

-- 
Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. -- Rick Cook, The Wizardry Compiled