From: Austin Ziegler <halostatue@...>
Date: 2006-06-15T05:51:04+09:00
Subject: Re: A plan for another unicode string hack

On 6/14/06, Dave Howell <groups@grandfenwick.net> wrote:
> On Jun 14, 2006, at 9:17, Austin Ziegler wrote:
> Yes, I undertstand. Making #size and #length return different values
> is a mistake. Without referring to documentation, how would you know
> which returns the number of characters and  which one returns the
> number of bytes?
>
> I cannot agree. "Length" (to me) unavoidably implies that it's the
> answer to the question "How LONG is it?" I expect the answer to be "n
> characters long."
>
> "Size" is the answer to "How BIG is it?" as in "How much space does
> this thing take up?" and if it's a UTF-8 string, I expect an answer
> like "1 byte per character + one more byte per character not in the
> 7-bit ASCII range"
>
> I would never have to look up which is which. Obviously Austin's
> mileage varies.

As much as I like to say that I'm "from Ruby" these days, not everyone
will be. Some languages use string.length(); others use string.size().
I do not think that the proposed distinction is meaningful and
presents problems.

-austin
-- 
Austin Ziegler * halostatue@gmail.com * http://www.halostatue.ca/
               * austin@halostatue.ca * http://www.halostatue.ca/feed/
               * austin@zieglers.ca