[PYTHON MATRIX-SIG] Release 0.20 of matrix object is available

[Hinsen Konrad]

   Actually, the 8-character limit is not as serious, since:

   1. For most dos/windows-3.1x programs, including python, long file names are
      automatically truncated, and

Bad enough. I have lots of module names that do not differ in the
first eight characters. Not much of a problem for me, because
I am not going to use 8-character systems any more unless forced with
a gun, but a problem for Python portability in general.

   Still, Windows-NT and Windows 95 are both case-insensitive, and when Python is
   told to import "Spam", it will happily import from Spam.py, spam.py. SPAM.PY,
   ...

Another portability problem. Although in general I wouldn't use upper-
and lowercase variants of the same name together, this can happen by
accident, and then I have code that works only on some platforms.
Since Pyton uses case-sensitive names everywhere, it should try to
enforce this as much as possible also for module names.

Michael McLay on the same topic:

   I don't think a universally agreed upon solution has ever been reached
   on the filename mapping issue.  It wouldn't be to hard to implement a
   platform independent mechanism that allowed case sensitive names.  It
   could all be done by redefining the import statement so that filenames
   are looked up at run time on some platforms.  The filesystem on

That would be a good solution. Is there any SIG we can make
responsible for this? ;-)

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Konrad Hinsen                     | E-Mail: hinsenk@ere.umontreal.ca
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