Re: How do you feel about utf-8 in ruby code?

Gerald, thank you for providing the perfect example of why using unicode is
such a bad idea. Lets take the line you gave:

Hash‹Address→Hash‹Address→Game››

Now I don't know which actual code point your › is but here is a list of
unicode code points that look similar (and there are probably more)

U+003E >
U+02C3 ˃
U+02F2 ˲ <-- In my editor this looks like a squished U+02C3, but in Gmail
this looks like a , to me. Go figure
U+203A ›
U+227B ≻

So to work on your code I would be forced to cut and paste all the time to
guarantee I was using the correct code point. That is not going to be a
pleasant experience and is definitely going to be a source of bugs

As a bonus let us take the end of the line, the ››, which we can assume is
just two › code points. Well how about:

U+00BB »
U+226B ≫

Visually similar, especially U+00BB, but incorrect

Until all editors, mail clients etc handle unicode correctly (trust me here
U+02F2 visually similar to > in my editor but looks like a , in gmail -
perhaps you are not seeing this though, who can tell) this is simply a
source of confusion

Unicode is nice and all but seems to offer no advantage in this case.
Rather it can be a source of frustration and bugs


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