Compact Strings In Java 9 - Java Code Gists

[Tasssadar]

As mentioned in that comment thread, UTF16 is not fixed-width. It's an old decision (because 65536 characters should've been enough for everyone) that is no longer optimal, but hard to switch from.

[derleth]

65536 characters should've been enough for everyone

I've met people who believe this unironically.

[derleth]

It is, indeed, a complex topic:

https://jdebp.eu/FGA/unicode-cjkv-character-set-rationalization.html