Re: Registration of some code pages

[Anne van Kesteren <annevk@opera.com>]

On Thu, 02 Sep 2010 01:48:21 +0200, Shawn Steele  
<Shawn.Steele@microsoft.com> wrote:
> I’ve been asked to register a few code pages, but some of them are  
> problematic because the names don’t match our behavior exactly.  This is  
> similar to the problem facing HTML5 when they are trying to map from the  
> names used to the actual behavior that IE (and therefore others) use.
>
> Specifically, I’m wondering about registering “windows 950”, but somehow  
> annotating it that Microsoft typically redirects “big5” to that  
> behavior.  So an alias isn’t really appropriate.
>
> Similarly, is there something we could add to the Windows-31J  
> registration to recognize that Microsoft uses shift_jis to point to  
> Windows-31J instead of using the registered form?
>
> IMO there’s not much point in me registering “new” names to help people  
> understand existing compatibility issues since the new names won’t be  
> recognized by the existing implementations.

Ideally the registry (or maybe a new one specific to the Web) reflects  
what implementations do. If we all agree that "big5" means "windows 950"  
than "big5" should just mean that even though originally the intention  
might have been different. After all, that is what the running code is  
doing. That would give the most clear guidance to new implementors and  
allows existing implementors to converge.


-- 
Anne van Kesteren
http://annevankesteren.nl/