[resend, some ORBZ site blocked the message]
Pablo Saratxaga wrote: > On Mon, Jan 21, 2002 at 02:47:48PM +0100, Bram Moolenaar wrote: > > > > Usability is provided by GUI selection tools, not by softening syntax > > > specs. The case sensitivity makes a lot of sense as ISO's language and > > > setenv LANG de_DE.iso-8859-1@euro > > setenv LANG DE_de.ISO-8859-1@euro > > setenv LANG de_DE.Iso-8859-1@EURO > > > > Do you think an average user can guess which one of these he has to > > type? No GUI available! > > To use the command line you must be able to read a doc and to copy correctly > what it said; you are also supposed to know the command line is case > sensitive. Strange way to put it. You mean that command names are case sensitive. What happens with arguments and environment variable values is up to who uses them. > > The underscore is sufficient to separate the language and region. > > Upper/lower case doesn't really help me anyway, it's only an extra thing > > to know. > > But it's also the way things are done sice ever (or at least as long as > I can look at); why to break it and introduce compatibility problems ? Ignoring case does not appear to lead to compatibility problems. I can't think of an example of two existing locales that only differ by case. > > If we can agree on case insensitivity, then case differences are not > > aliases. You can type them any way you like and they would still be the > > same locale. > > Note that case insensitivity is locale dependent; by introducing case > insensitivity you may have some very strange behaviours, like > the locale being recognized when you first define it (as you were on another > locale previously), then after the change is done you start getting errors > (as the new locale defines new case insensitivity rules and the string that > previously was considered the same is not anylonger the same). Locale names are always in ASCII and thus are indifferent to the current locale. That's part of the proposed standard and it would be hard to imagine how it would work if it didn't, also when case matters. > Also, remmeber the filesystem is still case sensitive; which means that > if you introduce case insensitivness for locales naming in variables, you > need to change the sources of the libc or other sensitive libraries in > order to have the files where locale data is stored found even if what the > user request is a different name than the one of the actual directories... This is only a small change. The library can automatically adjust the case of the locale name to how it is mentioned in the current proposal. If that is too complicated, making everyting lowercase will work, but then the existing locale files need to be renamed. > The supposed benefits are too small compared to the troubles. I think you underestimate the importance of user friendliness. This is not unusual when you look at Linux from the point of view of a developer. Please try looking at it from the point of view of a user, and attempt to make the system as user friendly as you can! -- He who laughs last, thinks slowest. /// Bram Moolenaar -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- http://www.moolenaar.net \\\ ((( Creator of Vim -- http://vim.sf.net -- ftp://ftp.vim.org/pub/vim ))) \\\ Help me helping AIDS orphans in Uganda - http://iccf-holland.org /// -- Linux-UTF8: i18n of Linux on all levels Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-utf8/
