Re: Mixing characters and bytes Michael Sperber 25 Aug 2005 16:52 UTC

Per Bothner <xxxxxx@bothner.com> writes:

> Michael Sperber wrote:

> * Performace:  Using streams is expensive - at the very least it puts
> a lot of pressure on the garbage collector.  A program that uses
> imperative ports should not have to use streams just because it
> wants to use a non-utf-8 encoding.

I actually suspect that transcoding from arbitrary lookahead offset
the GC cost on systems with good GCs.

> * Complexity:  Having to deal with a very different abstraction
> just because I want to use a non-utf-8 encoding complicates my
> program and my mental model.
> * Switching encodings: You can't switch encodings without switching
> ports.

Fair enough.  I had trouble figuring it out how to make it work, which
is one reason why I punted on it.  (It's trickier than what you
suggest.)  But I believe I've found a way to do it, which I hope I can
incorporate in the next revision.

--
Cheers =8-} Mike
Friede, Völkerverständigung und überhaupt blabla