String.force_encoding

Hi,

Nobu has just checked in a String.force_encoding method, which alters 
the encoding of a string (without, apparently modifying the underlying 
bytes at all: that is, it does not transcode from Unicode to SJIS or 
anything; it just changes the interpretation of the underlying bytes.)

In the changelog, Martin Duerst is credited with suggesting the name 
force_encoding.  Could Martin or Nobu or Matz explain to non-Japanese 
speakers the thinking behind this name.  The last I heard it was going 
to be called "encode".  I can see that the name "encode" has hints of 
transcoding, and a user might think that it did more than it actually does.

I don't want to re-open a discussion if this decision has already been 
firmly made.  I can live with force_encoding; it is not likely to be 
used often.  But I do want to suggest that it is awkward in English and 
I think we can do better.  My primary complaint is that "force" has 
connotations of "something you shouldn't do".  Putting "force" in a 
method name seems to me to be an inelegant substitute for ending the 
name with !

The only parts of the ruby-dev thread I can understand were some of the 
other names considered.  One I liked was short and sweet: "as".  But for 
longer names, I think that either "set_encoding" or "alter_encoding" 
sound better than "force_encoding" and don't imply transcoding in the 
way that "encode" does.

Also, one more request: can we make force_encoding accept nil as a way 
to specify ASCII (aka binary) encoding?

	David