Bring wxMBConv Overview Background section from mid-90s to mid-2010s.

Update the Unicode introduction text to better reflect the reality of 2016, not 1996.
This commit is contained in:
Lauri Nurmi
2016-02-02 21:31:50 +02:00
parent d1944ad801
commit 7bcd9e05bd

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@@ -20,23 +20,25 @@ convert between Unicode and the variety of 8-bit encoding systems still in use.
@section overview_mbconv_need Background: The Need for Conversion
As programs are becoming more and more globalized, and users exchange documents
across country boundaries as never before, applications increasingly need to
take into account all the different character sets in use around the world. It
is no longer enough to just depend on the default byte-sized character set that
computers have traditionally used.
As programs have become more and more globalized, and users are exchanging documents
across country boundaries as never before, applications need to take into account
the different letters and symbols in use around the world. It is no longer enough
to just depend on the default byte-sized character sets that computers have
traditionally used.
A few years ago, a solution was proposed: the Unicode standard. Able to contain
the complete set of characters in use in one unified global coding system, it
would resolve the character set problems once and for all.
The Unicode standard is the solution to most tasks involving processing and exchanging
text in arbitrary languages. Unicode is able to contain the complete set of characters
used in all languages of the world in one unified global coding system.
But it hasn't happened yet, and the migration towards Unicode has created new
challenges, resulting in "compatibility encodings" such as UTF-8. A large
number of systems out there still depends on the old 8-bit encodings, hampered
by the huge amounts of legacy code still widely deployed. Even sending Unicode
data from one Unicode-aware system to another may need encoding to an 8-bit
multibyte encoding (UTF-7 or UTF-8 is typically used for this purpose), to pass
unhindered through any traditional transport channels.
Unicode text can be represented in various encodings, one of the most commonly used
being UTF-8. UTF-8 along with UTF-7 are so-called "compatibility encodings", which
exist to facilitate the migration from old 8-bit encodings to Unicode. Despite the
wide adoption of Unicode, a number of legacy systems out there still depends on the
old 8-bit encodings.
Sending Unicode data from one Unicode-aware system to another, e.g. through a network
connection or regular files, is typically done by encoding the data into a multibyte
encoding; usually UTF-8.
@section overview_mbconv_string Background: The wxString Class