Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!dogie.macc.wisc.edu!uwvax!umn-d-ub!umn-cs!ns!ddb From: ddb@ns.network.com (David Dyer-Bennet) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: Just Wondering Message-ID: <1315@ns.network.com> Date: 24 Apr 89 21:16:45 GMT References: <13159@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> <17037@mimsy.UUCP> Reply-To: ddb@ns.UUCP (David Dyer-Bennet) Distribution: na Organization: Terrabit Software Lines: 28 In article <17037@mimsy.UUCP> chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes: :In article <13159@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> jskuskin@eleazar.dartmouth.edu :(Jeffrey Kuskin) writes: :>A "I was just wondering" question: :> :> Why is C case-sensitive? : :BecAUSe peopLE arE CaSE senSITive, as YOU CAn noW see. It's not so clear to me (though that's certainly a cogent example). I recognize the word "It's" at the beginning of my first sentence as just the same as the word "it's" in the middle of some sentence somewhere without any problem (after 12 years or so of concentrated training in school, that is). I think people are pretty thoroughly trained to NOT be case sensitive at the individual word level, and that your example is hard to read because it violates our training to use casing as part of punctuation. Making the rules of c casing in conflict with the rules of English casing (which I percieve them to be) was probably a bad idea, unless there are large benefits somewhere. I've certainly seen a lot of "casing" bugs. -- David Dyer-Bennet, ddb@terrabit.fidonet.org, or ddb@ns.network.com or ddb@Lynx.MN.Org, ...{amdahl,hpda}!bungia!viper!ddb or ...!{rutgers!dayton | amdahl!ems | uunet!rosevax}!umn-cs!ns!ddb or Fidonet 1:282/341.0, (612) 721-8967 9600hst/2400/1200/300