Slava wrote:
> But with replacement characters, having a UTF8 default with no
> indication that it is UTF8 would lead to confusion among newbies
> attempting to read binary files.
In my last response, I covered the case where a newbie, having some of the
hacker spirit in him, learned of <file-writer> in the wild, by reading some
code.
For completeness, let's consider the other option. The newbie reads the
documentation. Let's assume that we're not using the mandatory encoding
system. When she looks up the documentation for <file-writer>, the
documentation will be very clear:
Text is the default
If you want binary, just do:
"..." binary <file-writer>
instead of
"..." <file-writer>
If you want details about what "Text" means and your other options
regarding
text, see this article on Unicode.
In the case of a newbie who's just trying random stuff, they can run into
problems with both systems; you can't quite get around that.
The documentation for the humane interface is much simpler.
Remember that anecdote from Guy Steele? Something like, talking to James
Gosling, "I can describe what you've done in twenty pages or you can make
this change and I can describe it in two, which would you prefer?".
Well that kind of reminds me of this situation. From the point of view of a
new user, just explaining that "text" is the default and "binary" is an
option will get them a very long way (again, it's enough for the core
implementation).
On the other hand, if you force upon them an encoding symbol, such as 'utf8',
you're unnecessarily exposing them to something which is going to take a
while to explain.
Ed
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