Unicode
Unicode is a universal character encoding standard that assigns a unique numeric code point to every character used in written languages, symbols, and emojis across the world. It enables consistent representation, manipulation, and exchange of text across different platforms, devices, and applications, supporting over 150 scripts and thousands of characters. This standard is fundamental for internationalization and localization in software development, ensuring text is handled correctly regardless of language or region.
Developers should learn and use Unicode to build applications that support multiple languages and scripts, such as websites, mobile apps, or databases serving global users. It is essential for handling text input/output, storage, and processing in internationalized software, preventing issues like mojibake (garbled text) and ensuring proper sorting, searching, and display. Use cases include developing multilingual websites, creating localization tools, or working with data that includes emojis, mathematical symbols, or non-Latin scripts like Chinese or Arabic.