Re: gnus should accept UTF8 even if UTF-8 is standard

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Ted Zlatanov writes:
 > On Tue, 21 Oct 2008 11:50:37 +0900 Kenichi Handa <address@hidden> wrote: 

 > KH> I think it's not good to give a user an incorrect impression
 > KH> that "utf8" is a correct name.  In IANA
 > KH> (http://www.iana.org/assignments/character-sets), there's no
 > KH> alias names for "UTF-8".

Although I tend to be a standards bigot myself, IMHO this is a bit
harsh for practical purposes, especially since in GNU libc it *is*
an acceptable alias (computed algorithmically).  AFAIK GNU libc is
POSIXLY_CORRECT, because POSIX defines neither any locales (besides
C/POSIX itself) nor a registry for locale names.

 > So maybe display a message "This is not the real coding system name, use
 > `utf-8'" and also don't offer utf8 for completion?  Would that be
 > sufficient?

I think the warning is overkill and too annoying.  For programmers,
having their programs grind to an ignominious halt on the Lisp error
will teach them to spell, while for interactive entry of coding system
names, the damage has long since been done, and we may as well offer
the convenience.  The internal canonicalization function is needed
anyway for MUAs.

Of course "utf8" should not be offered for completion.  Instead, if
you type "utf8" it should be completed to "utf-8" *and* *require*
confirmation (no implicit completion as with, eg, command names).

That should be educational enough.