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From: diamond@diamond.csl.sony.junet (Norman Diamond)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: case sensitivity
Message-ID: <10182@socslgw.csl.sony.JUNET>
Date: 24 Apr 89 03:54:46 GMT
References: <13159@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> <1989Apr21.194615.5344@utzoo.uucp>
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Reply-To: diamond@csl.sony.junet (Norman Diamond)
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>In article <13159@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> jskuskin@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Jeffrey Kuskin) writes:

>>    Why is C case-sensitive? ...

In article <1989Apr21.194615.5344@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:

>Why not?  The real question is why things should be case-*in*sensitive.
>Uppercase and lowercase are different in appearance and in English usage;
>why should they be synonymous in a programming language?

You mean:

WHY NOT?  THE REAL QUESTION IS WHY THINGS SHOULD BE CASE-*IN*SENSITIVE.
UPPERCASE AND LOWERCASE ARE DIFFERENT IN APPEARANCE AND IN ENGLISH USAGE;
WHY SHOULD THEY BE SYNONYMOUS IN A PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE?

Ugly yes, sometimes difficult to read yes, different in usage maybe, but as
for not being synonymous.....

Come on Henry, you wouldn't want to have to distinguish identifiers named
myFunc and myfunc, when reading someone else's code.  If you don't want to
have myFunc map onto myfunc (i.e. not be synonymous) then suggest a require-
ment that all occurences of an identifier be consistent in case, but it is
silly to permit two distinct identifiers to differ only in case.

>Mars in 1980s:  USSR, 2 tries, |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
>2 failures; USA, 0 tries.      | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

Canada, 0 tries.

Norman Diamond, Sony Computer Science Lab (diamond%csl.sony.jp@relay.cs.net)
  The above opinions are my own.   |  Why are programmers criticized for
  If they're also your opinions,   |  re-inventing the wheel, when car
  you're infringing my copyright.  |  manufacturers are praised for it?