> > counterpart might be denial to connect without explicitly set
> > charset.
>
> Agree. But I am not ready to make this change in 2.2.0

That would be the reason against every 2.x.0
And 3.0 is in unpredictable future.

> Sorry, you cannot guarantee this. So we have to look for a better
> solution.

sometimes all the solutions has one danger or another, you only can choose which you consider least bad.

> But since I cannot enforce correct behavior, I will not
> change one dangerous behavior to another one.

That leaves the only option of prohibiting no-explicit-charset connections at all.

And frankly i can't see why such change is that dangerous that can't be part of 2.2.0

> Firebird has its user base, Java being only 6% of them, .NET a bit more,
> the rest are Delphi people.

Delphi is on the rise. But they would promote IB not FB, and since they are diverging, if they would manage to proper promote IB and all power practices, the switch IB->FB would be less and less possible.

I think that new Delphi FB users stream would decrease.
Old-schoolers would leave.

WWW, Java and .Net are to catch-up and start attracting new developers.

10-15 years ago there was not that much choice of lightweight servers and one could expect newbs to make their ways through all the gotcha's, mail archives and such. They just hardly had better choice.

But that would not work with projects that already has its reference db server and just asked to support yet another one.

> > * or think why those developers fall into unexpected tarpits and
> > what can be changed to make newb's attempts at FB easy and smooth.
>
> That's what we did.

You call it rant. When i describe how expectations are obtained and failed.

> But do not expect that every change will be fixed
> in minutes

As of current outcome, not even in months :-/

But you know, up to me it frankly does not matter.
Again, particular TS issue was resolved on Thursday, Xwiki not solved at all.

So what am i interested in this all discussion in how to make FB more newb-friendly, making its adoption hopefully wider.

And "we already for years know it was done badly. We would change it some not yet chosen way on some not yet fixable date" would hardly change that state. Pity.

> No. The most easy way is to send an email to those developers and
> advice them to perform the change.

Would You do it for every app ?

You imply the user has same FB/JB experience like you.
But in reality user would have less experience than devels.

And most probable dialog would be
- your program does not work in FB
- we told you not to waste time on FB
- you were right

It would be extremely rare cases when user would insist on FB and able to know it better than developers to give them valid and detailed advice.

If about "mail for TS", then u might look if i missed something or not
http://www.trackstudio.ru/forum/firebird-howto-issue-4859.html