The problem (or one of the problems) really is that the same utilities that are used for scripting are also used interactively. In a script you want predictabi

The problem (or one of the problems) really is that the same utilities that are used for scripting are also used interactively. In a script you want predictability, on the command line you want convenience. In general, you'd want these tools to behave as with the C.UTF-8 locale. Support unicode but forego the other locale shenanigans such as alternative characters for the decimal point. It never makes sense to treat files/documents differently depending on a system-wide or application-wide "locale" setting. The same document may be worked on by multiple people in different parts of the world.