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Message-ID:  <199911161936.UAA11914@bar.loria.fr>
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In-Reply-To:  <199911161918.UAA10340@relay.uni-heidelberg.de> from "Javier
              Bezos" at Nov 16, 99 08:17:51 pm
Date:         Tue, 16 Nov 1999 20:36:42 +0100
From: "Denis B. Roegel" <Denis.Roegel@LORIA.FR>
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To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L
              <LATEX-L@URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
Subject:      Re: babel 3.7 beta release
Status: R

`Javier Bezos' wrote
>
>   >>   On the other hand using different encodings for a language within one
>   >>   document is somewhat perverse.  So it would be reasonable to have per
>   >>   document defaults.
>   >
>   >Yes, but these defaults should depend on the language.
>
>   No - they depends on the system. A Mac file is the same in Spain
>   and France. A Linux file is the same in Spain and France. But a
>   Spanish file is not the same in Mac and Linux.

Actually you misunderstood me, because I meant "depend on the
language" and not "depend only on the language."
Of course, there can be other parameters, like platform, etc.
So, we could decide a default platform (:-) or make the platform
explicit.

I do not see why "A Linux file is the same in Spain and France"
should be always true (assuming you mean that such a file is viewed
the same way), because this can depend on the linux configuration,
or on the configuration of your editor. I have a colleague
who has a Russian configuration on his UNIX box and he doesn't
see files as I do.

When you say "Spanish file is not the same in Mac and Linux," you mean
presumably that the keyboard configurations and editor (or other
display programs) are different, but a file is a file!

So, even if there are several kinds of dependences, I still think
that there should be default encodings per language, and if you wish,
per platform (the latter information could be obtained from the inputenc
package, or from a global option for instance).

One thing that should also be clear, is the fact that one can manipulate
text in a given encoding, without actually having a configuration
corresponding to this encoding.
For instance, I have manipulated Russian text in
koi8-r encoding, without actually seeing the characters properly other
than with xdvi. In this case, I really didn't care about what I saw,
nor did I care on the platform.
I only fed the Russian environment with koi8-r text,
and if koi8-r had been the default input encoding, this would have
resulted in no hassle at all.

Denis Roegel