RE: Encoding Standard (mostly complete)

[Shawn Steele <Shawn.Steele@microsoft.com>]

> I think having a single specification to address all encoding questions is useful. 
> It presents encoding algorithms in a consistent style and gives other specifications an simple reference.

Unfortunately this document doesn't "own" any of the other standards that it's summarizing.  As an software developer I'd rather "go to the source" than an intermediary document that may have inadvertently introduced a discrepancy from the actual authoritative standards.

I'm not suggesting that a single source wouldn't be nice, but rather that it's impractical.  Unless you can get Unicode to cede the definition of UTF-8 to your document, and the same with all the other standards, they're bound to be inconsistent or diverge.

It may be better as a pointer to the other standards, &/or documentation of quirks where other standards have been implemented differently and the pros & cons of those standards.

-Shawn