Julik doesn't like UTF:

When starting on any programming project you can reasonably expect every component of the toolchain to have broken UTF support. Every single one of them. From database to the bindings to the scripting language to the web server.

Well, if you were using Smalltalk, that wouldn't necessarily be the case. Cincom Smalltalk deals with UTF, mostly without problems. When writing Silt and BottomFeeder, my biggest issues have been with inbound text of unknown (and unmarked) encoding.