> [...] But this /is/ a programming language, albeit a simplistic and > declarative one. I don't know what its name is, but it is > presumably the programming language of one of the various > Unix-derived command-line interpreters ...
Well, if you argue like that then almost all output emitted by UNIX command-line tools can be considered as a programming language... My point is: If Joe User calls the `locale` command on the shell prompt, he receives this output; he also has to handle such strings if he is going to modify his locale settings. A similar problem happens with file names in many large projects: You often have `foo_bar.c` and `bar-baz.c`, and sometimes even `foo_bar-baz.c`. Mixing up `_` and `-` is even a problem if you work with a GUI. Note that only a small amount of programs actually complain if they can't restore the locale (because they are going to modify it). And I only know of `luatex` that actually aborts in such a case. Werner