Re: Case sensitivity in programming languages.


"Richard Levasseur" <richardlev@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1154444134.119919.228810@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Tony Marston wrote:
It has little to do with programmer preference.
However, it has grown into a feature most people want.

Most people don't *want* this "feature", they are forced into it. When
you
have worked for many years with case insensitive software then encounter
the
problems created with case sensitive software you realise what a stupid
idea
it really is. Given the choice most programmers would chosse software
which
creates fewer problems for them, wich means choosing case insensitive
software.


Thats why is most every language today case sensitive and no one
complains? Or why class names are now case sensitive (when doing
get_class())? Or why function names are now stored in their declared
case instead of all lowercase?

Languages which are compiled can detect and adjust for changs in case at
compilation time, therefore changes in case are totally transparent. There
are some IDEs which will automatically adjust the case of any variable or
function as they are keyed in, so again changes in case are totally
transparent. People who use such langages are shielded from the effects of
different case, therefore have no reason to complain. It is where the
difference in case is NOT handled automatically by the language that
problems can arise, and those of us who come from a background of
case-insensitive languages are the only ones who see that case sensitivity
does nothing but cause problems and offers no benefits whatsoever.

Additionally, the case sensitivity of a language has no bearing on how
easy it is to determine if a token is a variable, function call, object
instantiation, etc. This is determined by the grammar rules and syntax
of the language. And, if the grammer requires certain tokens to be of
a certain case, then its not a very good case-insensitive language.
Again, case has absolutely nothing to do with how easy it is to
identify what token a string of characters are.

Then why is it that some posters have created their own standards whereby
the use of case identifies whether something is a constant, variable,
function or method, and they now want to enforce those standards on
eeryone
else?


Again: From a compiler design perspective, case does not affect the
ease of identifying a token. The ease of identifying a token depends
on the grammar of the language. I said nothing about personal
conventions.

I do not like the idea of using different mixtures of case to idenitfy
different types of token.

--
Tony Marston
http://www.tonymarston.net
http://www.radicore.org


.

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