On Thu, May 09, 2002 at 03:24:56AM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote: > * Non-ASCII characters support +3 > nice, but not really a requirement, for the projected usage. People > who require non-ascii char support can change the alternatives, > install only conforming editors, or set the EDITOR variable while we > get out house in order. (I have no objection to this criteria > remaining in, though). Precisely. We are trying to prioritize alternatives for /usr/bin/editor, not for /usr/bin/wordprocessor or /usr/bin/programming_ide. Some people choose to use the same piece of software for writing letters as for editing config files or submitting bug reports; but this does not mean that our default for one of these tasks must have all the features required by other tasks. Having good support for non-Western input methods is a nice feature in any software, but it is not essential when trying to edit /etc/network/interfaces so that you can get your machine on-line. Having a /usr/bin/editor that the novice user can get up-to-speed on quickly is much more important than having one that supports kanji -- or /any/ non-ascii characters, for that matter -- and the weights assigned to these criteria should reflect that. Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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