UTF-16
UTF-16 is a variable-length character encoding for Unicode that uses one or two 16-bit code units to represent each character. It is widely used in operating systems like Windows and programming languages such as Java and JavaScript for internal string representation. It supports the entire Unicode character set, including supplementary characters beyond the Basic Multilingual Plane.
Developers should learn UTF-16 when working with systems that natively use it, such as Windows APIs, Java, or JavaScript engines, to handle text encoding correctly and avoid data corruption. It is essential for applications requiring full Unicode support, especially when dealing with international text, emojis, or rare scripts that fall outside the Basic Multilingual Plane.