[LINK] Dot Asia a good idea?

Ivan Trundle ivan at itrundle.com
Tue Oct 9 20:59:10 AEST 2007


On 09/10/2007, at 8:40 PM, Kim Davies wrote:

> <snip>
>
> Another issue is that ISO 3166-1 allows domains to be guarded against
> collision due to its finite set of possible codes (always two letters,
> never more, never less.)<snip>
>
> There are a lot of languages, and quite a few scripts, and a universal
> list of codes is unfortunately nowhere near realistic at this stage.

I thought that the UN had ISO 3166-1 all stitched up, with only  
disagreement from the French.

It doesn't matter that the lexicon is difficult to interpret, but  
rather that a code exists in the first place. The ISO country coding  
system pre-dates the Internet by a considerable amount, and is  
recognised as having more strengths than weaknesses.

I understand that a new 3-digit numeric code was developed in the  
early 80s to make better 'visual associations' between country and  
code, but it is most interesting that the growing importance of the  
web has placed greater pressures on ISO 3166-1 to be more relevant in  
the future, and its stability as a framework for developments in ISO  
3166-2 and -3 will be interesting to watch in the coming years.

A good place for background information is http://www.iso.org...

iT



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