On Wed, Oct 22, 2003 at 09:02:02AM +0900, Tomohiro KUBOTA wrote: > Some supplementations: Then I'll respond to this message and let it serve as a reply to both. First of all, thanks for clarifying your opinions and perspective. > From: Tomohiro KUBOTA <debian@tmail.plala.or.jp> > Subject: Bug#215647: [patch] xterm 4.3.0-0pre1v3 i18n > Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 07:58:40 +0900 (JST) > > > 1. If you say "People using UTF-8 locales may have to use uxterm > > (or other special softwares) because the main software (xterm in > > this case) is not improved enough", then I may agree. However, > > in this case, improvement is very easily possible. > > I am saying about my patch. I do not regard uxterm as "special", nor xterm as "main". Sure, in terms of implementation, uxterm is a wrapper around xterm, but that's a technological detail that need not concern most users. The users just want things to work. > > 2. UTF-8 is only one of many locales. How about other locales > > like EUC-JP, ISO-8859-11, KOI8-R, and so on so on? Do people > > using EUC-JP locales should use "eucjpxterm"? Do people using > > ISO-8859-13 locales should use "iso885913xterm"? > > In your idea, "iso885913xterm" is not needed but EUC-JP is ignored. I don't think either xterm or uxterm support EUC-JP, so I don't really see your point. You need to remember what xterm is. First and foremost, it's a VT100 terminal emulator. It got a Tektronix 4014 emulator bolted onto it at one point, and it added support for VT 220s (and 320s and 420s as well, I think), but fundamentally it's still an 8-bit terminal emulator. XTerm simply was not written from the ground up to be a multi-byte, highly-internationalized terminal emulator. The version first of XTerm was written in 1984. > > 3. There are already a standardized way called "locale" for users > > to set only one (or a few) variable(s) such as LANG, LC_ALL, > > LC_MESSAGES, LC_CTYPE to order all softwares (including xterm) > > to follow it. In well-i18n-ed situation, all that users have to > > do is just to set LANG variable, and then all softwares respect > > it. Why do you ignore the standardized way even when it is easily > > implemented? > > This is the main point. IMO, "uxterm" is an evil fork and a makeshift > until xterm itself will be improved enough. Evil fork? Are you hearing yourself? uxterm can't be a fork because it's just a shell script wrapper around xterm. A makeshift solution? Possibly. If xterm itself renders uxterm obsolete, a compatibility symlink can be provided for a Debian release or so while people switch over to xterm. > Or, it is a version for people who don't know LANG variable or people > who just want to temporarily test UTF-8. I use uxterm and neither of those descriptions fit me. > However, if we were admit uxterm as a final solution, we would have to > accept UTF-8 variants for all softwares. We would have to introduce > uls, uwc, uperl, used, ugrep, and so on so on. Ah, the slippery slope argument. I don't have time to rebut logical fallacies. > However, fortunately, original version of ls, wc, and so on will > respect locale and support UTF-8, so such an evil fork is avoided. > > Anyway, I think your idea is useful for some softwares except xterm, > since xterm can be improved with easier patch (which I sent). Your arguments are not persuasive, especially because they're so shrill and seem to betray a lack of understanding of the underlying software. You can modify the XTerm app-defaults files on your machines as much as you like; that's why they're conffiles. But your reasons for filing this bug appear to boil down to a subjective personal dislike for typing "uxterm" instead of "xterm". Outright replacement of xterm with uxterm would cause surprising changes in behavior for some users -- at this point, anyway. Perhaps in the future that won't be so. Maybe you should ask Thomas Dickey what you can do to help realize that future where uxterm no longer needs to exist. Closing this bug. -- G. Branden Robinson | No math genius, eh? Then perhaps Debian GNU/Linux | you could explain to me where you branden@debian.org | got these... PENROSE TILES! http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Stephen R. Notley
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