Character encodings -- what and why?

[yonglan]

Not having any specialized knowledge in computers, I often wonder why there are so many different encodings and why they can't all just get along. Netscape lists three for Japanese and four for Korean -- and one might have guessed they'd have one each. Simplified Chinese has five! Traditional has three.

Are they (the people who make all this stuff) trying to trim this down? Any hope it will happen? I know Google mail uses unicode and they're trying to make it so you can use it with every language. Is this the right track?

Answers or URLs leading to answers are much appreciated.

[pazu]

They have already done it,,, or almost?

In a unicode system including Windows XP, they can display T/S Chinese, Japanese, Korean and so on together. The different standards evolved in the early age of computing seem to be 殊途同歸 now. Haha.

[yonglan]

Thanks, Pazu. I would say 90% of the time, the computer I use (XP, Netscape 7.1) renders whatever language I happen upon automatically just fine. But sometimes it doesn't and occasionally none of the encodings for a particular language work. Hopefully this is a dying trend

Thanks again.

[Quest]

Think of it as the grams and the ounces, the meters and the feet. Why invent the SI system? because it's better. Why not popularize it in the US? because old habbits die hard. So now, we've got to deal with all these conversion problems between different systems.

[Abelius]

This will eventually get easier, in fact the Firefox browser from Mozilla is already implementing some practicality on the matter...

But yes, Unicode is the way to go...

[pazu]

But I've heard that there're some new systems AFTER unicode, mostly developed by Japanese and they claimed that they could display more Kanji, including some Kanjis used in names but not yet implemented in the Unicode system.

Is it still quite a long way? Or the Japanese are developing another beta tape or memory stick?

[trevelyan]

Unicode seems to be the clear winner internationally, but I wouldn't write-off Guobiao. I've also heard that the government is mandating the domestic softare industry to use that standard, although who knows if it's actually enforced.

[imron]

Actually, the Guobiao standard is defined largely in terms of Unicode and is there largely to act as one big mapping table for the original GB character set to Unicode. Unicode is the way that most people seem to be heading towards.

As Quest says, it's really more a matter of old habits dying hard. All modern browsers and OSes have decent unicode support. The problem is that there are still people creating webpages using the older standards.

[yonglan]

The problem is that there are still people creating webpages using the older standards.

How do I know whether I am one of those people or not? I know how to view different codes, but how do I know what code I am typing Chinese in? I use XP with Netscape Composer, though some stuff I've typed in other mediums. Thanks.