mule: why not show the damage of choosing "raw-text" etc. now?

[Dan Jacobson <jidanni@deadspam.com>]

I do a certain M-x compile command that produces output that looks
like normal big5 chinese... at least the first page of which that I
see in the split window.

I attempt to write this to disk with C-x C-w some_filename.

Due to some non-big5 character somewhere deep in the output, I encounter

   These default coding systems were tried:
     chinese-big5-unix
   However, none of them safely encodes the target text.

   Select one of the following safe coding systems:
     raw-text emacs-mule no-conversion

Well, whichever choice I make **_the file still looks good on my
screen_**, until of course the next time I start emacs (or the less
pager), when it has then become a unrecoverable bunch of <98>'s.

My point is, _why allow the file to keep on looking good this
session?_  If you are going to turn it into a "unrecoverable bunch of
<98>'s", why not do it now in front of the user's face instead of
having him think that the file is A-OK, and can be e-mailed to
friends, or is ready to go for the big presentation tomorrow?

Sure, emacs has its reasons for being unable to save the file in the
character set I wanted. OK, fine.  But why keep on displaying the file
in the comfortable character set instead of tipping of the user of
what the file now looks like next time he attempts to read it?
-- 
http://jidanni.org/ Taiwan(04)25854780