Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!ima!haddock!suitti
From: suitti@haddock.ima.isc.com (Stephen Uitti)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Just Wondering
Message-ID: <12802@haddock.ima.isc.com>
Date: 26 Apr 89 18:59:38 GMT
References: <6899@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> <12565@lanl.gov>
Reply-To: suitti@haddock.ima.isc.com (Stephen Uitti)
Distribution: na
Organization: Interactive Systems, Boston
Lines: 28

>>      In mathematical expressions it's very useful
>>      to use case distinctions for related entities.  For example,
>>           Consider a graph G(V,E)
>>           for each vertex v in V do
>>             find an edge e in E such that e is incident on v
>>             ...
>
>Math texts also tend to use one character identifiers for all objects
>under consideration...

True story.  Two physics profs are standing at a blackboard.  There
is an equation on the board, something like

              2
        f(y)ab sin(x)

The one prof is heard to say, "yes, I see f, x, y, a and b, but what
are s, i, and the n function?".

>One last point.  I have a color computer a home.  To me, having a
>case sensitive language is as bad as having a _color_ sensitive one.
>Can you imagine?!?  Consider a program with 512 different variables,
>all spelled "a".  How would _YOU_ like to try to debug such a monster?

And your color printer only prints 16 different colors.  What is the
ASCII value of a red 'a' anyway?

Stephen.