Unicode

Again, more specific than you'd think.
Support for unASCII languages (or even symbols) seem to be the exception rather than the rule.
Adding Unicode broke IBM mainframe EBCDIC support. Am I the only one who is horrified?
There were ways (albeit nasty) to work with multibyte characters without Unicode: cf TPJ article by Friedl.
For most applications and most Perl programmers, it's bloat and a slowdown.
Perhaps this is why there aren't many people working on it, and the model floundered for years?

Forward to Object Frameworks
Back to Why doesn't Perl need XML?
Up to Why Perl is Special section index
Up to YAPC 2000 course index

YAPC 2000: Why Perl is Special - 7