[darcs-users] [darcs-devel] [patch639] Use utf-8 charset for darcs send in case of non-ascii ...

[Eric Kow]

Hi Dan (Stephen, Gabriel),

I suggested on the patch tracker [1] that we do the same thing we do
when reading patch metadata from the user, guess and fall back: try
decoding as UTF-8 and if there are errors doing so, decode as locale.
Would that be good?

For perspective in case anybody is only skimming, this discussion is
about the email blurbs that accompany patch bundles, so no core data
such as patches is affected.

> > Or maybe I'll do as a friend of mine suggested and submit a patch
> > that crashes darcs on start-up if the current locale is not ascii or
> > utf-8, to count the number of utf-8-reluctant darcs users out there
> > ;-)

> Considering the elegance of the darcs system, there is no
> place for such immature and vengeful approaches to solving a problem.

I think Gabriel is quite clearly joking.  A reaction this strong is
probably not helpful here, but I hope you hold on it for a future
setting, because we're human, we screw up, and we need to be schooled
from time to time.

The sort of experience and user advocacy that Stephen and Dan provide is
valuable to the project, and I hope all Darcs developers (Core Team or
casual) take it to heart.  Perhaps a good principle is to try and do
right by default, and make our sacrifices as deliberate prioritisation,
not out of laziness.
  
[1] http://bugs.darcs.net/patch639

Thanks,

Eric

PS. on Darcs holiday for the summer as I attend to personal matters

-- 
Eric Kow <http://erickow.com>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 198 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
URL: <http://lists.osuosl.org/pipermail/darcs-users/attachments/20110708/923ff06e/attachment.asc>