# UTF8 space/difficulty tradeoffs

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/utf8-space-difficulty-tradeoffs/11205>\
**Category:** Internals & Design\
**Created:** [May 28, 2018, 6:14am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/utf8-space-difficulty-tradeoffs/11205 "2018-05-28T06:14:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

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**Author:** ![Tamas\_Papp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/tamas_papp/32/25949_2.png) [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)\
**Post date:** [May 28, 2018, 1:16pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/utf8-space-difficulty-tradeoffs/11205/2 "2018-05-28T13:16:33Z")

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> [@Strftime & strptime bug #27239 is present on all platforms, not just Windows](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/strftime-strptime-bug-27239-is-present-on-all-platforms-not-just-windows/11191/4):
>
> concerned me about the “UTF-8 is always best” mentality, text from the languages of the vast majority of the world’s population generally takes up 50% to 200% more space encoded with `UTF-8`

This is correct, but another perspective on this issue is that space is usually cheap compared to programmer time and the cost of bugs, so economizing on the latter by choosing a single representation is reasonable in many circumstances.

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