[Verba] Meeting summary

[Stuart D. Gathman]

Jillian had to study for tests, so only Rebecca came.  We examined
pathnames, URLs and coding.  

Pathnames uniquely identify files on a computer.  An URL extends a
pathname to include the name of the computer it resides on and the access
protocol.  On Windows, the Windows Explorer is a GUI view of the pathname
tree.  On Gnome (one of the Linux destops), we looked at the File Browser.  
On Mac, I believe the Finder is the equivalent.  I encouraged Rebecca to 
browse around her Windows system using Windows Explorer.  (But don't 
delete or rename any files.)

Then we went back to coding, and trying to understand the binary message
(Nemesis Coding).  The message is a sequence of numbers, expressed in
binary notation.  There is a standard mapping from numbers to characters
called ASCII.  The Aha! moment came while viewing the ASCII chart:

http://www.lookuptables.com/

and the chart for an older standard mapping (EBCDIC):

http://www.legacyj.com/cobol/ebcdic.html

and the (thousands of) charts for the modern Unicode mapping:

http://www.unicode.org/charts/

The Unicode-16 mapping extends ASCII to 16-bit numbers, and covers all
modern languages on earth except classic Chinese.  Unicode-16 covers Simplified
Chinese (like pidgeon English), which has about 20000 symbols and 
all phonetic or syllabic languages currently or recently in use.  Classic
Chinese has over 100000 symbols.  Unicode-32 covers Classic Chinese, ancient
scripts and fictional languages (e.g. Klingon).

We also talked about how written Chinese is non-phonetic and does not
correspond to a spoken language.  The empire had multiple spoken languages, and
the written language was independent and common to all the spoken languages.
It unified the empire.  Written Chinese is composed of ideograms - symbols
representing ideas and concepts.

-- 
	      Stuart D. Gathman <stuart at bmsi.com>
Business Management Systems Inc.  Phone: 703 591-0911 Fax: 703 591-6154
"Confutatis maledictis, flamis acribus addictis" - background song for
a Microsoft sponsored "Where do you want to go from here?" commercial.