3 ms·

Why though? What do you lose by forcing utf-8 at the filesystem level?

by CorrectHorseBat 4y ago

gpderetta 4y ago
Compatibility with a few decades of data and with other systems.
- eviks 4y ago
  But the future is longer than a few decades, so why extend the mistake further?
  - sacnoradhq 4y ago
    Because change costs way more to than you think: maybe billions of dollars and impacting billions of users. Creating 2 different systems carries risks: it has a learning curve, a support cost, and breaks everything that came before. Perhaps, in a utopian green field, we redo a systems language, a portable systems API, and a common operating system with a compatibility layer to the old way on top.
    - eviks 4y ago
      Change has already partially happened since there is no one single filesystem with one behavior. Not changing impacts many more users (all the future billions) and costs even more: the learning/support/etc. is all there, and it's harder to learn about a buggy system since you have more papercuts Also, it doesn't break everything, we're not living in a dystopia
      - actionfromafar 4y ago
        This is all true. We should also fix global warming, it's the same kind of problem. Massive investments now or even more massive losses tomorrow.
  - gpderetta 4y ago
    1) Not everybody, or even a majority, agrees that the current state is a mistake 2) Change what to what? There are multiple filesystems systems (and OSs) with different and sometimes incompatible filename encodings. Who picks the winner? 3) There is irony on dropping backward compat and requiring UTF-8, an econding whose claim to fame is backward compatibility with ASCII based systems (and not coincidentally was designed by UNIX Elder Ones)
    - eviks 4y ago
      I was responding to your specific argument ignoring the bigger future for the smaller past, not sure how the broader questions about what others think etc is relevant 1) so? That will be true for anything 2) sequence of bytes to human encoding. Who picked the loser??? This would similarly be some unidentifiable group of people. You can start by picking the winner for yourself, even at a conceptual level 3) no irony, sequence of bytes is not ASCII

Why though? What do you lose by forcing utf-8 at the filesystem level?

gpderetta 4y ago

Compatibility with a few decades of data and with other systems.

eviks 4y ago
But the future is longer than a few decades, so why extend the mistake further?
- sacnoradhq 4y ago
  Because change costs way more to than you think: maybe billions of dollars and impacting billions of users. Creating 2 different systems carries risks: it has a learning curve, a support cost, and breaks everything that came before. Perhaps, in a utopian green field, we redo a systems language, a portable systems API, and a common operating system with a compatibility layer to the old way on top.
  - eviks 4y ago
    Change has already partially happened since there is no one single filesystem with one behavior. Not changing impacts many more users (all the future billions) and costs even more: the learning/support/etc. is all there, and it's harder to learn about a buggy system since you have more papercuts Also, it doesn't break everything, we're not living in a dystopia
    - actionfromafar 4y ago
      This is all true. We should also fix global warming, it's the same kind of problem. Massive investments now or even more massive losses tomorrow.
- gpderetta 4y ago
  1) Not everybody, or even a majority, agrees that the current state is a mistake 2) Change what to what? There are multiple filesystems systems (and OSs) with different and sometimes incompatible filename encodings. Who picks the winner? 3) There is irony on dropping backward compat and requiring UTF-8, an econding whose claim to fame is backward compatibility with ASCII based systems (and not coincidentally was designed by UNIX Elder Ones)
  - eviks 4y ago
    I was responding to your specific argument ignoring the bigger future for the smaller past, not sure how the broader questions about what others think etc is relevant 1) so? That will be true for anything 2) sequence of bytes to human encoding. Who picked the loser??? This would similarly be some unidentifiable group of people. You can start by picking the winner for yourself, even at a conceptual level 3) no irony, sequence of bytes is not ASCII