Re: 23.0.60; Defaut encoding for XML files should be undefined (instead of utf-8)

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

 > You know, it's nice if people use self-describing documents, but Emacs
 > is an _editor_, not an xml validation system.

Emacs is an editor, so what?  That's hardly an exclusive description
of Emacs!  If PSGML is loaded it is also an SGML validation system;
I'm not sure whether the state of the art includes XML validation, but
there's no reason it shouldn't, and every reason it should.

 > It should handle things gracefully, as best it can, even if the
 > user is being a bit lazy.

What's ungraceful about C-x C-s responding with

    Warning:  This XML document does not seem to conform to XML
    charset declaration rules.  Would you like to
    (1) add an XML processor instruction (coding cookie)
    (2) link to a parent document which specifies the encoding
    (3) create a dummy parent document (available only to your sessions)
    (4) save as is in the [buffer-file-coding-system] encoding?

Doesn't it already do similar things if b-f-c-s is iso-8859-1 and you
try to save Japanese?

Nor is it an issue of lazy users.  Users *should* be lazy.  *We*
should do as much work as possible for them, and make standards
conformance the path of least resistance.  But what I think is
happening here is that some *developers* simply dislike standards
(standards "enslave" you, dontcha know?), and others are lazy.