1.2.2. Character Sets and Encodings

A similar set of considerations apply to character sets and encodings. URNs, especially URNs that will be used as user-facing identifiers, should be convenient to use in local languages and writing systems, easily specified with a wide range of keyboards and local conventions, and unambiguous. There are trade-offs among those goals, and it is impossible at present to see how a simple and readily understandable set of rules could be developed that would be optimal, or even reasonable, for all URNs. The discussion in Section 2.2 defines an overall framework that should make generalized parsing and processing possible but also makes recommendations about rules for individual URN namespaces.