Re: [TCLCORE] CFV warning: TIP #718: encoding compatibility for GDI/HammerDB/TPC/DB2

[Donald P. <d.g...@co...>]

I’m not immersed in this.  I don’t know what is involved.  Have not read the TIP.  I’d like to keep it that way and let those who are more familiar sort out the details.

That said, I see mention of adding new public features to Tcl 9.0.2.  This is making me care.

New features in a patch release is contrary to usual practice.  Is there really a compelling need?
A need I can comprehend without expertise in Windows encoding practices?
Or am I misunderstanding what is proposed?

DGP

> On May 19, 2025, at 4:28 AM, Jan Nijtmans <jan...@gm...> wrote:
> 
> This is a CFV warning for TIP #718. for Tcl 9.0.2+:
>    encoding compatibility for GDI/HammerDB/TPC/DB2
>    <https://core.tcl-lang.org/tips/doc/trunk/tip/718.md>
> 
> This TIP is meant as a subset of TIP #716 (with a few modifications). In my
> opinion TIP #716 is too big, it should have been split in - at least - 4
> parts.
>  1) bugfix, see <https://core.tcl-lang.org/tcl/tktview/8ffd8cabd1>
>         this is a no-brainer, already committed.
>  2) Remove UTF-8 from manifest. I don't agree with that, but I
>      agree with providing a tclsh90c.exe with a different setting.
>  3) New command "encoding user". Good idea, so I took it
>      over in TIP #718 (slightly modified, the TIP explains why)
>  4) -encoding option for "exec". Sounds OK to me, but TIP #716
>      still contains too many questions about this feature. That
>      tells me it's not sufficiently worked out yet.
> 
> Since "encoding user" is a good idea, we can already do something
> useful now, in time for Tcl 9.0.2 (I hope). I did my best to describe
> everything in the TIP text.