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Characters, Symbols and the Unicode Miracle - Computerphile

Computerphile · 2.1M views · 2013-09-20 · 9:37

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Overview

Tom Scott explains for Computerphile how Unicode and UTF-8 grew out of messy older character encodings to become the web's standard. It covers why the design works and how it handles worldwide text.

On Hacker News

HN treats it as the go-to short explanation of UTF-8, praised for making the topic stick.

Recommended by 4 HN people across 4 months · HN mentions 2014–2025

Topics

Graphic design & typographyInformation theory & signal processingNetworking & internet infrastructure
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unicodeutf-8character encodingcomputerphiletom scott

What people said

janvdberg · 2024-01 · Strong recommendation

Tom is why I understand UTF-8 [1]. And it is not so much WHAT he explained but HOW he explained it, what really made it stick. It was his sheer unbridled genuine enthusiasm that put him on the map for me. One of the best to do it. [1] [VIDEO]

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wcarss · 2020-08 · Strong recommendation

Something complementary -- because this article just takes a moment to talk about the different encoding schemes -- a wonderful, terse, very informative video describing how utf-8 encoding works and why (with a little history) by Tom Scott/Computerphile: [VIDEO]

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douche · 2016-04 · Strong recommendation

That is one of my all-time favorite youtube videos... This one, and a similar one on unicode[1], are my goto exhibits when I need to illustrate to a non-technical family member how much background complexity is involved in software [1] [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by Computerphile, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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