[rfc-i] non-ASCII characters in fixed-width sourcecode

[duerst at it.aoyama.ac.jp ( Martin J. Dürst )]

On 2016/02/18 02:53, Heather Flanagan (RFC Series Editor) wrote:

> I think something in the non-ASCII draft might be useful; if a fixed
> width font is not available for a particular script, then the
> restriction can be loosened for that part of the example.

I agree. Fixed-width is often very useful for source code (not the least 
because our eyes are used to see it that way), but it's not an absolute.

There are many scripts where fixed-width works quite okay, there are 
some script combinations (typically ideographs combined with e.g. Latin) 
where fixed-width means actually two widths (usually called half-width 
and full-width), and there are scripts (first and foremost Arabic) where 
any attempt to put them into a fixed-width straightjacket results in a 
big pain to the eye.

Then there are also the issues of whether it's fixed-width per byte, per 
(Unicode) code-point, or per user-perceived grapheme.

The cases where this really might be relevant in one way or another will 
be few and far between, and can be handled on a case-by-case basis.

Regards,    Martin.