Latin1 was the early default character set for encoding documents delivered via HTTP for MIME types beginning with /text . Today, only around only 1.1% of websites on the internet use the encoding, along with some older appplications. However, it is still the most popular single-byte character encoding scheme in use today. A funny thing about Latin1 encoding is that it maps every byte from 0 to 255 to a valid character. This means that literally any sequence of bytes can be interpreted as a valid string. The main drawback is that it only supports characters from Western European languages. The same is not true for UTF8. Unlike Latin1, UTF8 supports a vastly broader range of characters from different languages and scripts. But as a consequence, not every byte sequence is valid. This fact is due to UTF8's added complexity, using multi-byte sequences for characters beyond the general ASCII range. This is also why you can't just throw any sequence of bytes at it and e...
Implementing something that works but that you don't entirely understand is like finding a new chord that you don't know the name of yet. You have an intuition that it's a pleasant chord—it may work—but you might lack the ability to fully articulate or describe why. In a moment such as that, it's good to pause and consult the literature until you can fully articulate it.
There's a subtle, incredible difference between implementing a thing and understanding a thing. If you find a way to do something but move forward without fully understanding why it works, the only thing you carry forward is a mistaken understanding about it. Its usefulness remains only a happy accident.
Happy accidents are ok. They're sometimes useful if they're stepping stones on the way to greater learning.
Practicing music is a lot like that. But repetition can be a double-edged sword. For example, if you make a mistake but don't stop and correct it—and instead just continue playing—then you won't actually improve your understanding or ability to play the piece. Instead, you'll just get very good at making the mistake.
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