[plt-scheme] Why do MzScheme ports not respect the locale's encoding by default?

On Feb 19, Jim Blandy wrote:
> 
> I don't want to broaden the problem too much.  I'm not concerned
> with proper bidirectional rendering behavior, input methods for
> Hebrew, Japanese, etc. etc.

You've just hand-waved away a huge localozation problem, which is
almost not addressed using locales.  I just do the exact same thing
when I say:

> - It's not worth it.  Everyone should use Unicode code points and
>   UTF-8.

Locale is a semi-stupid idea which would be a little more sane if it
was restricted to rendering stuff only, which is impossible on unix
(and that demonstrates the stupidity of using text for both UI and
processing, stupidy that apparently blows up to ridiculous levels if
locales are thrown in).  You say "why should I be forced into using
ASCII/English for everything?" and for that you use locales.  But for
me locales are not a solution in any case, so I see them as some
middle point that sucked and sucks development time for no good
reason.  I mean, it would be cute to support them if there was some
easy and sensible way to do so, but --

> - Locale sensitivity makes programs' behavior less predictable.
> [...]
> - It's hard to implement.

-- 
          ((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x)))          Eli Barzilay:
                  http://www.barzilay.org/                 Maze is Life!