Hi Daniel,

actually I am with up to _one_ point, the definition of a _text_ file.

My definition would be roughly like:

   A file containing meaningfull runs of characters, organized into lines
   by LineEndingCharacter(s).

Sadly, there are several definitions of LineEndingCharacter(s) in use 
today, but if I read a _text_ file I don't care which convention is used 
in the _file_ I always want the same internal representation.

A program that can't cope with the major line endings out there in this 
way is just broken. (Beware, this is valid for _text_ files, according 
to _my_ definition, if I care about line endings, it's not a text file 
anymore. - Of course I admit that, for the interchange of textfiles with 
broken programs, the lineending convention may be important.)

Daniel Vainsencher wrote:
> Scripting languages do by default all sorts of things that other
> languages require be specified. I think each is doing the right thing
> for its niche, and I don't think Squeak should behave like a scripting
> language in this matter. 
> 
> Note that I would be happy even if autodetection did exist, but had an
> intention revealing name such as #smartFileNamed:. Then people would
> have had fair warning about what is going on. What I am saying is that
> the plain #fileNamed: and friends, should be plain, not smart.

Then you are arguing to use binary as default, or even better, _no_ 
default at all, and a explicit definition of how you want to access the 
file, sounds reasonable.

> In this scenario, all the functionalities would exist, and be easily
> available but the surprises would be harder to come by.

OK.

> Daniel

Ingo