[naikrovek]

It doesn't have to be formatting...

It is not a "very bad idea" it is "an idea you do not like." Those are different things.

The way you're describing UTF-32, it can't work at all, and it definitely does.

Trying to save space by using UTF-8 over UTF-32 seems like a very small gain to me, is all. UTF-32 is simpler, for text created in that encoding.

[targonca]

There are tons of resources online about why UTF-32 doesn't make sense. I'm not gonna repeat them. Do your own research.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8195827

https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/2361...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-32#Analysis

http://utf8everywhere.org/#myths