Re: On bug reporting style [was: Re: Netscape 3.0]

[turnbull@example.com (Stephen J. Turnbull)]

>>>>> "Darren" == Darren Cook <darren@example.com> writes:

    Darren> I have made pages where it works, so I expect it is either
    Darren> a browser bug, or a config problem.

No, it's "if you pay for the operating system, you can expect more
from the applications designed for it."

    >> Ok, please try:
    >> 
    >> http://www.bekkoame.or.jp/~mizukawa/etc/o-search.html
    >> 

    Darren> This works fine! Both text and the buttons have Japanese
    Darren> on them. I am using Netscape 3.0 on Windows 95 at the
                                                ^^^^^^^^^^
Windows 95 is not X.  Internationalization features are quite
different.  In fact, I don't think Netscape is actually international
in the sense that it is not possible to have multiple lnaguages
simultaneously in the browser window.  (There ar esome spectacular
demos of this for mule with Hebrew, arabic, Chinese and Japanese
simultaneously used inthe same document.)  Windows 95 is proably based
on Unicode, so it should be possible for Win 95.  Win 3 on the other
hand is still SJIS and that's the target for Netscape.

X on the other hand is based on a compound string model which is more
internationalizable than Unicode.  Unicode has space for only 64k
characters (if you think that's a lot, please remember that classical
Chinese includes *at least* 48000, and that in many cases Japanese
glyphs are different from Chinese in minor ways, and Korean glyphs are
again variants).  It's true that Unicode allows for extensions, but I
don't think many people are going to be willing to give up the
advantage of a single wide_char character set; they will never be
implemented.  Also, I suspect that Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans are
just not going to be willing to give up their preferred font *styles*
(and there are probably multiple variants of preferred style for
Chinese!)

So it's not gonna work for Linux, or any X-based system, most likely.
Few of those whose primary environment is X are likely to *buy*
Netscape products.  Andreesen & Co. are not going to bother.  It's
worth it for them to do the Mac and Windowze versions right (and
easier).  Corporate buys Netscape products.

It's not a bug, it's just different code.  Or you can consider a
missing feature a bug if you want.

-- 
                           Stephen John Turnbull
University of Tsukuba                                        Yaseppochi-Gumi
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences  http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp/
Tennodai 1-1-1, Tsukuba, 305 JAPAN                 turnbull@example.com
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