Re: Understanding how to specify UTF-8

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Will Parsons <wbp@nodomain.invalid>
> Date: 7 Apr 2017 23:43:55 GMT
> 
> I want to always use Unicode/UTF-8 unless otherwise specified.

This doesn't tell what exactly do you want to happen.  The above
basically says "I want to use UTF-8 except when I don't", and doesn't
say a word about those "I don't" cases.  So please elaborate to make
the responses more accurate and correct.

For example, what about files you edit that were encoded in something
other than UTF-8 before? what about responding to email encoded in
something other than UTF-8? etc. etc.

> I've noticed that I've attempted to do this in my .emacs file in two
> separate ways on two separate platforms:
> 
> 1)  (setq-default buffer-file-coding-system 'utf-8-unix)
> 
> 2)  (set-language-environment "UTF-8")
> 
> Both seem to work, but I'm wondering if there are subtle differences between
> the two that I should be aware of.

The second one is better, as it leaves Emacs more leeway where UTF-8
might not be appropriate.  But it's difficult to know what to tell
without the additional information.