[whatwg] Superset encodings [Re: ISO-8859-* and the C1 control range]

[Øistein E. Andersen]

On 19 Oct 2009, at 05:52, Ian Hickson wrote:

> I've noted your e-mail here [...] and moved the whole thing out of  
> the spec.

That does not seem to apply to the last part of the original e-mail,  
quoted below.

Øistein E. Andersen



> Other character encoding issues:
> --------------------------------
>
> ASCII-compatibility:
> The note in ‘2.1.5 Character encodings’ seems to say that ‘variants  
> of ISO-2022’ (presumably including common ones like ISO-2022-CN,  
> ISO-2022KR and ISO-2022-JP) are ASCII-compatible, whereas HZ-GB-2312  
> is not, and I cannot find anything in Section 2.1.5 that would  
> explain this difference.
>
>
> Discouraged encodings:
> ‘4.2.5.5 Specifying the document's character encoding’ advises  
> against certain encodings.  (Incidentally, this advice probably  
> deserves not to be ‘hidden’ in a section nominally reserved for  
> character encoding *declaration* issues.)  In particular:
>
>> Authors should not use JIS-X-0208 (JIS_C6226-1983), JIS-X-0212  
>> (JIS_X0212-1990), encodings based on ISO-2022, and encodings based  
>> on EBCDIC.
>
> It is not clear what this means (e.g., the character set  
> JIS_C6226-1983 in any encoding, or only when encoded alone according  
> to RFC1345 as described above); the list of discouraged encodings  
> seems conspicuously short if it is supposed to be complete; and the  
> lack of rationale makes it difficult to understand why these  
> encodings are considered particularly harmful (JIS_C6226-1983 v.  
> JIS_C6226-1978 or ISO-2022 v. HZ, to mention but two at least  
> initially puzzling cases).  It might be better to say *why*  
> particular encodings are better avoided, whether or not the list of  
> discouraged encodings be presented as definitive.
>
> Minor grammar detail in 4.2.5.5:
>> Conformance checkers may advise against authors using legacy  
>> encodings.
>
> This is ambiguous.  It should probably be ‘advise against authors’  
> using legacy encodings’  or better ‘advise authors against using  
> legacy encodings’.