Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!bobmon
From: bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: case sensitivity
Message-ID: <19925@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: 22 Apr 89 18:33:33 GMT
Reply-To: bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante)
Organization: malkaryotic
Lines: 30

djones@megatest.UUCP (Dave Jones) <4402@goofy.megatest.UUCP> :
-
-... so you can talk to other engineers about the program without
-saying, "The first A is capitalized, and the S in Set, and ... no not
-that one..."

Better you should simply name that first A as "capital A".  And if you're
talking to an engineer who gets the wrong letter from "the S in Set" then
you have major difficulties beyond case-sensitivity.

I once had the pleasure of reading a rookie engineer's first technical
report, written in ALL UPPER CASE.  IT WAS SHEER AGONY.  IT SET HER CAREER
BACK BY THE AMOUNT OF TIME IT TOOK HER TO COMPLETE AN IN-HOUSE TECHNICAL
WRITING COURSE.

-
-I determined then, that if I ever write my dream-language, it's identifiers
-at least will pass the telephone test.  The language will not only
-not distinguish case, but underscores will not be significant
-in indentifiers.  Of course, there would be a way to distinguish a

And in this language, will "foon" and "phoon" be syntactically identical?

I can't recall EVER wanting to communicate a program to someone orally,
either over a phone (excuse me, fohn) or in person.  When I have to, I
specify it character by character, and if some of those characters are
uppercase, or are blanks, or are oddball printable characters, I name
them as such.

This telephone test sounds utterly ill-conceived to me.