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Comment by buro9 | Hacker News Reader

You didn't read the article.

This isn't a config file, this is the query string of a URL, or more importantly the POST data of a form.

From the article:

> By default, older versions of IE (<=8) will submit form data in Latin-1 encoding if possible. By including a character that can't be expressed in Latin-1, IE is forced to use UTF-8 encoding for its form submissions, which simplifies various backend processes, for example database persistence.

> If the parameter was instead utf8=true then this wouldn't trigger the UTF-8 encoding in these browsers

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"Hmmm... there's something wrong with that idea, but I can't quite put my finger on it...."

I think your missing the sarcasm...

No, the sarcasm is obvious. It's just not very funny, and doesn't positively contribute to the level of discourse here.

Of course it positively contributes. It's the first comment to say that it's a silly way of encoding the form as utf-8 when utf8="✘" will also do the same thing, even though it's counterintuitive.

That is actually what I was going for; the humor attempt was a bonus.

ConstructiveHumour=✓

Wait, true...true

I have already seen a website which use "ie=☠" in the URL.

It is only counterintuitive because you arbitrarily assigned a different type (boolean, with members you made up) instead respecting that any utf8 character fits the utf8 type.

X is used variously as true and false in Different languages, so why would you assume it means false in a language you have never used?

Well i didn't make it up, but yeah i get your point. I didn't mean that i'd assume it means false, but it's still clearly counterintuitive to use a tick to encode as utf-8 when any character at all will do. A tick has an opposite, an X, a snowman (as in the Rails case) doesn't.

I laughed.

Could you explain it then? I'm really confused!

That would spoil the joke.

˙ɔıuoɹı sı ʇɹoddns ǝpoɔıun ou s,ǝɹǝɥʇ ʇɐɥʇ ǝʇɐɔıpuı oʇ ʇı buısn os 'ɹǝʇɔɐɹɐɥɔ ǝpoɔıun ɐ ɟןǝsʇı uı sı ssoɹɔ ʇɐɥʇ

Clear enough then! But why upside down? ;-)

More important to me, HOW upside down? How did you do that?

http://www.fliptext.org/

Unicode is fun. ;)

Haven't you ever tried to solve puzzles in comic books?

Because he can.

pedant-mode on

All characters -- including every one in this post -- are unicode characters. The definingly-useful characteristic of the cross (or checkmark) is that it can't be represented in latin1.

It's because there's a false semantic implied with the checkmark (that it's true instead of false), where instead the only thing that reallly matters is the encoding of the character. So it's not the most elegant solution (but it is pretty cool).

I think you are right. Maybe something like force_utf8=✓ would be more clear?

That would be more misleading.

SampleUtf8Char= would be more clear.

Ok - I cannot reply to your child post @aviraldg but I really want to know what utf-8 construct turned your text upside down.

Check google: https://www.google.com/search?q=type+upside+down

no special construct at all, just a bunch of characters that are (or merely look like) upside-down versions of regular latin letters. For example, the "upside-down" u is actually an normal n...

Do you have a mapping available? Presumably a script?

Edit: Please :-)

http://www.fliptext.org/

which has this javascript code to convert:

http://www.fliptext.org/flip.js?c=2

He wasn't being sarcastic, he was being sardonic

it's just a joke using a unicode x-ish char would still do the same as the check...

I sort of think the snowman, or at least another character that doesn't carry the connotation of "positive" or "true", is a better idea... but I have to admit any developer who would make that mistake is, alas, so far in over their head anyhow that there's probably no saving them from themselves, so, you know, check's cool.

To be fair, and as you basically said, having “utf8=✓" is counterintuitive when it's being used as an IE hack rather than an actual descriptive parameter. I could imagine many competent enough developers seeing this parameter in someone else's code, or in a book or something, and immediately thinking that changing the tick to an X would make a difference, because that'd only make sense.

I think that vaguely competent would require analytical skills good enough to say, ok utf8="non ascii character", now if I change it to another nonascii character is that likely to change my request's execution path in the server...

Parkinson's law of triviality.

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