Why bother with character encoding?

[xyZed]

I know I should use it and I DO. However, I need to convince a company
that they need me to redesign their web site and I don't know what
the consequences of not using character encoding are. (This is one of
the points I want to make)

Basically, most web sites don't specify any character encoding but
they don't appear to suffer any consequences other than the W3C
validati0on doesn't work with them.

Why exactly should you use character encoding?

 

[goodhart]

I know I should use it and I DO. However, I need to convince a company
that they need me to redesign their web site and I don't know what
the consequences of not using character encoding are. (This is one of
the points I want to make)

Basically, most web sites don't specify any character encoding but
they don't appear to suffer any consequences other than the W3C
validati0on doesn't work with them.

Why exactly should you use character encoding?

--

Free washing machine help and advice. Free washing machine reviews. Buy washing machine parts.

www.washerhelp.co.uk [remove mymask_ to email]

I don't know if this is directly related to not declareing the character
encoding or just coincidence
but I quite often get a scattering of korean characters on pages with no
character encoding declared

the pages are usualy still readable but it is iritating.


Cheers
Trusylver
www.gympieonline.com The local Business Directory for Gympie and Cooloola

 

[brucie]

in post: <

I know I should use it and I DO. However, I need to convince a company
that they need me to redesign their web site and I don't know what
the consequences of not using character encoding are. (This is one of
the points I want to make)
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/charset.html

Basically, most web sites don't specify any character encoding

a quick check through my links and the response headers says most do

 

[Charles Banas]

I know I should use it and I DO. However, I need to convince a company
that they need me to redesign their web site and I don't know what
the consequences of not using character encoding are. (This is one of
the points I want to make)

Basically, most web sites don't specify any character encoding but
they don't appear to suffer any consequences other than the W3C
validati0on doesn't work with them.

Why exactly should you use character encoding?

without a character encoding specified, the user agent will usually use
the system's default codepage.

interestingly, in my own system, Internet Explorer will usually use the
ISO-2202 character encoding by default. (this is due to my browsing
habits and system configuration.)

thus, with the character encoding specified on the page, the characters
displayed will actually be the ones intended to be displayed. otherwise
the UA will fall back to the default codepage, which may not display the
page's text in the intended way.