Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!ncar!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!sun.soe.clarkson.edu!cline From: cline@sunshine.ece.clarkson.edu (Marshall Cline) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++ Subject: Re: extern "language" Message-ID: Date: 24 May 89 20:15:04 GMT References: <1989May5.172915.20820@utzoo.uucp> <1000011@hpclscu.HP.COM> <833@cbnewsc.ATT.COM> Sender: news@sun.soe.clarkson.edu Reply-To: cline@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Marshall Cline) Organization: Clarkson University, Postdam NY Lines: 28 In-reply-to: nevin1@cbnewsc.ATT.COM's message of 17 May 89 16:49:23 GMT In article <833@cbnewsc.ATT.COM> nevin1@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (nevin.j.liber) writes: >In article <1000011@hpclscu.HP.COM> shankar@hpclscu.HP.COM (Shankar Unni) writes: >>Personally, I think that it should be case-insensitive. Many people spell >>Fortran, Pascal and Ada with different cases. Rather than make people >>memorize the "party-line" spellings, why not recognize them in any case? >(IMHO) From a language point of view, it is more 'consistent' to have >this case-sensitive. In the extern "language", "language" is >technically a string constant, and it should obey the rules for string >constants. If your particular compiler wishes to ignore case, so be >it; it shouldn't be part of the language spec. >NEVIN ":-)" LIBER AT&T Bell Laboratories nevin1@ihlpb.ATT.COM (312) 979-4751 I agree 100%. The same "wouldn't case insensitivity be nice" could be applied to keywords, but the language design is the language design. Consistency considerations draw you toward the "case sensitive" choice. (Even though Un*x isn't part of the discussion here, case sensitivity is the general rule there also, which increases the "consistency" magnetism). Marshall -- ________________________________________________________________ Marshall P. Cline ARPA: cline@sun.soe.clarkson.edu ECE Department UseNet: uunet!sun.soe.clarkson.edu!cline Clarkson University BitNet: BH0W@CLUTX Potsdam, NY 13676 AT&T: (315) 268-6591