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

> Eli Barzilay   eli at barzilay.org
> Locale is a semi-stupid idea which would be a little more sane if it
> was restricted to rendering stuff only, ... 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. ...

Couldn't agree more; and further although possibly more contentious,
believe the industry's relatively recent trend attempting to embrace/extend
programming languages to be multilingual symbol friendly seems equally if
not more counterproductive; as for good or bad, believe history has taught
us that one of the most efficient means to improve/sustain productivity is
to accept a single common basis of language and communication, and all
attempts to enable the preservation of individual dialects in formal
communication tend to result in ultimate failure, to the benefit of none.

Therefore correspondingly tend not to be enthusiastic with the notion of
enabling scheme (for example) to utilize extended character sets to define
symbols, or even well defined aliases (such as cute symbolic lambdas), as
I consider the program itself to be formalized critical information, who's
form should likely remain intentionally constrained to maintain it's
universal clarity. However do believe it's important to enable programming
languages to more conveniently and consistently process arbitrary data,
including those composed of multi-lingual character-sets, although not
support its extended, or alternative localized formatting convention, use
within the language itself, as I perceive it as ultimately being counter
productive.

(just my 2-cent thoughts)

-paul-