From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Emacs Lisp's future Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 21:17:15 -0400 Message-ID: References: <54193A70.9020901@member.fsf.org> <87wq8pwjen.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <837g0ptnlj.fsf@gnu.org> <87r3yxwdr6.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <87tx3tmi3t.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <834mvttgsf.fsf@gnu.org> <87lhp5m99w.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <87h9ztm5oa.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <87d2ahm3nw.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <871tqneyvl.fsf@netris.org> <87d2a54t1m.fsf@yeeloong.lan> <83lhotme1e.fsf@gnu.org> <871tql17uw.fsf@yeeloong.lan> <838uktm9gw.fsf@gnu.org> <87h9zgarvp.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <83y4srjaot.fsf@gnu.org> <83r3yhiu8c.fsf@gnu.org> <83r3yg9bpu.fsf@gnu.org> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1412990248 9279 80.91.229.3 (11 Oct 2014 01:17:28 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2014 01:17:28 +0000 (UTC) Cc: dak@gnu.org, mhw@netris.org, dmantipov@yandex.ru, emacs-devel@gnu.org, handa@gnu.org, monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, stephen@xemacs.org To: Eli Zaretskii Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Oct 11 03:17:22 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1XclJC-0005av-3I for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 11 Oct 2014 03:17:22 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:51876 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XclJB-00037a-Iw for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 10 Oct 2014 21:17:21 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:49277) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XclJ7-00034r-OQ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 10 Oct 2014 21:17:18 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XclJ6-0006tj-HG for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 10 Oct 2014 21:17:17 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:35598) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XclJ6-0006td-FB for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 10 Oct 2014 21:17:16 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XclJ5-0002Po-Er; Fri, 10 Oct 2014 21:17:15 -0400 In-reply-to: <83r3yg9bpu.fsf@gnu.org> (message from Eli Zaretskii on Fri, 10 Oct 2014 18:38:21 +0300) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Error: Malformed IPv6 address (bad octet value). X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:175247 Archived-At: [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] Originally, Emacs would complain that Latin-1 cannot be used, and asked the user to select a different encoding. That is about Latin-1. What did Emacs do, at that time, with UTF-8? Then users of UTF-8 locales complained that these prompts were annoyances, that they expect Emacs to use UTF-8 silently, without any questions, as long as UTF-8 can encode the result. It is not clear what "As long as UTF-8 can encode the result" means, concretely. Whether Emacs's UTF-8 encoding can encode the raw bytes is a matter of our decision. Strictly speaking, UTF-8 can't encode the raw bytes. Thus, it seems that asking for confirmation before writing raw bytes in UTF-8 is consistent with that expectation, and writing the raw bytes without asking for confirmation is also consistent with that. I am not trying to play word games with you. I think you probably had a more specific point in mind, but you need to present it clearly. > > What exactly did we try before? > > and you responded > > AFAIR, we tried converting raw bytes into valid non-ASCII characters, > and perhaps also replacing them with the equivalent of u+FFFD, the > Unicode "replacement character". > > But those are both different from the proposal I'm discussing. How are they different? The first of them was to convert the raw bytes into valid non-ASCII characters. (When? When reading the file? When writing the file?) You have not described that behavior clearly, but either way it is not the same as the proposal we are discussing now. This proposal is to ask for confirmation before encoding a file with raw bytes. The second was to "replace" these codes with something else. (When? When reading the file? When writing the file?) Either way it is not the same as the proposal we are discussing now. This proposal does not replace any characters. In any case, I hope you are not expecting to hear about user reactions to any of the proposals that haven't been tried yet. That idea did not come from me. YOU said they had already reacted to THIS proposal. What I (and I think also David) were trying to show is that _similar_ situations were met with user complaints and outcry, and that we are where we are today because we heeded to those complaints. There are many ways for two different designs to be "similar". They are also different. The details are crucial for users' reactions. I think the people who objected to those behaviors, which involved changing the file contents, might not mind the confirmation much. -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation 51 Franklin St Boston MA 02110 USA www.fsf.org www.gnu.org Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software. Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call.