That article is missing several concepts which are essential for
understanding Unicode; like many programmers, Mr. Spolsky thinks of
Unicode as "wide ASCII", which it is not.
From the article:
Some people are under the misconception that Unicode is simply a 16-
bit code where each character takes 16 bits and therefore there are
65,536 possible characters. This is not, actually, correct. It is
the single most common myth about Unicode, so if you thought that,
don't feel bad.
It's worth mentioning that his article isn't meant to convey a
complete understanding of Unicode; rather, it really is the absolute
minimum every developer must know. Given your own earlier distinction
between someone writing code that treats strings as a unit and someone
writing code that looks through a string, I would argue that Spolsky's
article is, indeed, a very appropriate primer for the *former* class
of developer and certainly a more engaging read than many other
treatises on character representations. I would also agree with your
point that most people looking through strings are doing so without so
much as a cursory understanding of some very important concepts.
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