On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 11:16 AM, Geoffrey Myers <geof(at)serioustechnology(dot)com
> wrote:
> Totally agree. Still, the question remains, why not leave it as SQL_ASCII?
>
you have no guarantees that the data stored within is utf-8. that is all.
if you can make such guarantees from within your application, then you have
some confidence, but never 100%. but it depends on what access you permit
to the DB. it is kind of like removing FKs and enforcing them from the
application layer. you can do it, but you just don't have a 100% guarantee
that the DB is consistent.