GNU bug report logs - #6007
locale sort ordering confusion

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From: "Alan Curry" <pacman-cu <at> kosh.dhis.org>
To: 6007 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#6007: en_US sorting is completely stupid.
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2010 03:47:49 -0500 (GMT+5)

Andreas Schwab writes:
> 
> "Alan Curry" <pacman-cu <at> kosh.dhis.org> writes:
> 
> > Who's the "power" here anyway?
> 
> You are, actually.  Everyone can define locales to behave the way he
> likes, see localedef(1).

I avoid this by not having any locales installed. But that doesn't help all
the other victims.

> 
> > From the name "en_US" one might guess that it represents the behavior
> > expected by English-speaking users in or from the US. But those users
> > have lived with computers for a generation or two. What they expect is
> > ASCIIbetical.
> 
> Nowadays most people don't know what ASCII is.

They may not know how to name it, but they do complain when it isn't used,
enough that it's a FAQ.

People install a GNU/Linux distribution, pick "English" from the language
menu, and get a set of sorting rules that doesn't makes sense. Sorry, should
have told the installer you speak "C".

"Donna Summer" just doesn't belong between "Don Adams" and "Don Pardo", and
everyone knows it. Not a bug? Bah. Not a coreutils bug, but it's a bug. If
glibc was in the same bug tracking system with coreutils, reports like this
one could be reassigned there.

-- 
Alan Curry

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