From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.org/gmane.linux.lib.musl.general/5631 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Rich Felker Newsgroups: gmane.linux.lib.musl.general Subject: Re: Locale bikeshed time Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 15:30:15 -0400 Message-ID: <20140726193015.GQ4038@brightrain.aerifal.cx> References: <20140724201548.GM16795@example.net> <20140724220228.GB4038@brightrain.aerifal.cx> <20140725090649.GN16795@example.net> <20140725201551.GQ16795@example.net> <20140725223239.GG4038@brightrain.aerifal.cx> <20140726072502.GR16795@example.net> <20140726080327.GJ4038@brightrain.aerifal.cx> <20140726093805.GS16795@example.net> <20140726174706.GF10402@port70.net> <20140726185613.GY16795@example.net> Reply-To: musl@lists.openwall.com NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1406403041 30873 80.91.229.3 (26 Jul 2014 19:30:41 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 19:30:41 +0000 (UTC) To: musl@lists.openwall.com Original-X-From: musl-return-5636-gllmg-musl=m.gmane.org@lists.openwall.com Sat Jul 26 21:30:33 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: gllmg-musl@plane.gmane.org Original-Received: from mother.openwall.net ([195.42.179.200]) by plane.gmane.org with smtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1XB7fo-0000Gy-M0 for gllmg-musl@plane.gmane.org; Sat, 26 Jul 2014 21:30:28 +0200 Original-Received: (qmail 5251 invoked by uid 550); 26 Jul 2014 19:30:27 -0000 Mailing-List: contact musl-help@lists.openwall.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: Original-Received: (qmail 5243 invoked from network); 26 Jul 2014 19:30:27 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20140726185613.GY16795@example.net> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) Original-Sender: Rich Felker Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.linux.lib.musl.general:5631 Archived-At: On Sat, Jul 26, 2014 at 08:56:13PM +0200, u-igbb@aetey.se wrote: > I apparently missed the discussions which led to this policy, > sorry if I am beating a dead horse: The original locale plan was based on the principle that the whole locale system in C/POSIX is poorly designed, but that it's still the basis for supporting native-language interfaces in software, and thus that musl should eventually have the minimal locale support necessary for enabling such usage. Using the locale system as a means for arbitrary non-essential customization, support for legacy character encodings, etc. is outside the scope of that. > To prevent users from shooting themselves in the foot looks > considerate. Personally I would nevertheless prefer to have a possibility > to influence the radix dot character, at least as a locale variant > and take the consequences. > > If anybody else feels for using "," than so be it in the corresponding > locale, as the default or as a variant - how much would it cost? > > The generally "most international" locale I am aware of (eo_ZZ) happens > to need ",". If your population numbers are correct, this seems to be > a proper choice too - modulo broken locale use/deployment. > > Actually I very much dislike software which expects that it knows my > situation better than myself and prevents me from doing what I need. And what about character encoding? Should we also support Latin-1? Or ISO-2022? One thing I don't like about how the whole locale discussion has gone is that, once one one thing is added, demands for more and more things that have much higher implementation and maintenance costs, good technical reasons not to provide, and less and less practical benefit, keep popping up. Radix points is definitely such an item where the cost (in terms of bug/security risks, code size, making state-free code stateful, maintenance, and just plain being ugly, ...) is relatively high and the benefits are near-zero. Rich