Why does modern Perl avoid UTF-8 by default?

Question

I wonder why most modern solutions built using Perl don\'t enable UTF-8 by default.

I understand there are many legacy problems for core Perl scripts, where it may b

Answer 1

We're all in agreement that it is a difficult problem for many reasons, but that's precisely the reason to try to make it easier on everybody.

There is a recent module on CPAN, utf8::all, that attempts to "turn on Unicode. All of it".

As has been pointed out, you can't magically make the entire system (outside programs, external web requests, etc.) use Unicode as well, but we can work together to make sensible tools that make doing common problems easier. That's the reason that we're programmers.

If utf8::all doesn't do something you think it should, let's improve it to make it better. Or let's make additional tools that together can suit people's varying needs as well as possible.

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