Is there really a default source encoding?

[Brian Quinlan]

> > Because making the default encoding UTF-8 would break the majority
of
> > source files that include non-ASCII characters.
> 
> Whereas making it ASCII won't? (Having Latin-1 for a certain period of
> time I can understand, the switch to ASCII *afterwards* not).

I don't understand the goal of your proposal. The goal of the current
plan is to support existing non-ASCII source files but warn the user
that they will need to add an encoding comment in the future. 

UTF-8 is a supported encoding. In fact, if a UTF-8 BOM is present then
the encoding comment is not necessary.

Cheers,
Brian