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From: ddb@ns.network.com (David Dyer-Bennet)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: case sensitivity
Message-ID: <1320@ns.network.com>
Date: 24 Apr 89 21:40:13 GMT
References: <13159@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> <1989Apr21.194615.5344@utzoo.uucp>
Reply-To: ddb@ns.UUCP (David Dyer-Bennet)
Organization: Terrabit Software
Lines: 23

In article <1989Apr21.194615.5344@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
:In article <13159@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> jskuskin@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Jeffrey Kuskin) writes:
:>    Why is C case-sensitive? ...
:
: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?

In most cases (sorry), casing in English doesn't distinguish this word
from another word spelled identically; rather, it identifies a word
that's at the beginning of a sentence.  Or it identifies a non-word
such as an acronym; but most people just accept those as normal words,
regardless of the casing.  Also, in text ALL CAPS is often used for
emphasis, without confusing anybody about which words are meant.
Casing rules in English are generally formal, not substantive, and
therefore I consider case to be essentially not significant in normal
English usage.

-- 
David Dyer-Bennet, ddb@terrabit.fidonet.org, or ddb@ns.network.com
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