[OS X TeX] Input encoding question

[Axel E. Retif]

On  20 Feb, 2009, at 01:49, Peter Dyballa wrote:

> Am 20.02.2009 um 08:07 schrieb Axel E. Retif:
>
>> My point in favor of a utf-8 default is, 1) most of (La)TeX and  
>> ConTeXt users around the world need more than 127 characters, and  
>> we are already accustomed to input them directly with either  
>> latin1, latin9 or utf-8; and 2) most of recent TeX editors (v.gr.,  
>> TeXmaker, TeXworks) have already utf-8 as default.
>
> Just because *some* software can handle it, it's not reason enough.  
> Files grow big because some (statistically: quite all) characters  
> are represented by more than one byte, software needs to extra- 
> process these byte sequences.

OK. Good point.

>> [...] for sure LaTeX will understand applemac, but the thing is,  
>> will future TeX editors understand it?
>
> Yes. Because the file that describes this LaTeX encoding is part of  
> a TeX distribution. An editor that does not support a LaTeX encoding  
> is no "TeX editor."

With this I'm not so sure. Of course in principle you're right, but I  
don't know if future Linux or Windows TeX editors will care much about  
including Mac Roman as the encodings they understand.

Best,

Axel