[Haskell] ANNOUNCE: Data.CompactString 0.1 - my attempt at aUni code ByteString

[Steve Schafer]

On Fri, 9 Feb 2007 16:21:07 -0800, you wrote:

>Note that some Unicode algorithms require the ability to back up in a  
>stream of code points, so that may be a consideration in the design  
>(maybe they could be implemented in Haskell in a way that doesn't  
>require that; I'm still learning, so I'm not sure yet). And regular  
>expression processing requires essentially random access (same  
>Haskell-fu considerations apply).

These are important points that need to be emphasized. Those who would
devise various "improvements" to UTF-8, etc. often fail to realize how
much careful thought went into their design. You can jump into the
middle of a UTF-8 string, and you'll need to move fewer than a code
point's worth of bytes to resynchronize with the reference frame, for
example. UTF-8 is also very robust with respect to data corruption.

Steve Schafer
Fenestra Technologies Corp.
http://www.fenestra.com/