Unicode primer. Joel-on-Software’s posted a great primer on Unicode character sets. If developers all read this piece, I’d never get a bloody question-mark and a broken RSS feed when I pasted in a curly-quote or an accent-character.
In this article I’ll fill you in on exactly what every working programmer should know. All that stuff about “plain text = ascii = characters are 8 bits” is not only wrong, it’s hopelessly wrong, and if you’re still programming that way, you’re not much better than a medical doctor who doesn’t believe in germs. Please do not write another line of code until you finish reading this article.Link (via Nelson’s Weblog) [Boing Boing Blog]