Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!watdragon!violet!afscian
From: afscian@violet.waterloo.edu (Anthony Scian)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Just Wondering
Message-ID: <13451@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Date: 25 Apr 89 03:17:36 GMT
References: <6899@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> <12565@lanl.gov>
Sender: daemon@watdragon.waterloo.edu
Reply-To: afscian@violet.waterloo.edu (Anthony Scian)
Distribution: na
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 30

In article <12565@lanl.gov> jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes:
[text deleted]
>Better yet, make declaration of identifiers which differ only in case
>strictly illegal.  Well, I guess it HAS to be just a warning for C
>to be backward compatible.  Still -- a NEW language could avoid these
>mistakes.
What mistakes? Why should everybody accept case-insensitivity?
Given a case-sensitive compiler, you can program to your heart's
content in case-insenstive bliss, so what is the problem?
Just pipe your source through 'tr' and map the entire alphabet
to whatever case you like. (If you are feeling ambitious, write your
own CPP so that there is one less filter in the pipeline)
As for keywords, what is wrong with:
#define IF if
#define WHILE while
etc.

If you dictated that case-insensitivity rules, those of us
that want case-sensitive compilers would be out of luck.
I find it really annoying when I find case errors later rather
than sooner because of case-insensitive tools.
As for the `silly errors' point, we don't need more relaxation
of checking when it comes to errors. We have enough lazy C
trash to rid ourselves of (what? default int, default export, etc).
I think you lost the important point in this thread of thought:
Programmers should not overload names with case-sensitive variations
on a theme.

//// Anthony Scian afscian@violet.uwaterloo.ca afscian@violet.waterloo.edu ////
"I can't believe the news today, I can't close my eyes and make it go away" -U2