1- are you trying to tell me that utf8 is a "new" feature ? in 2014 ? sorry, in 2015 ;) .
2- do you want to tell that for each operation in perl, and particularly for IO, I MUST specify utf8?
3- Is not it possible to specify that all is utf8 (unless exceptions) at computer level ? or at least at perl level, or at least at script level ?