Case-sensitivity: why -- or why not? (was Re: Damnation!)

[William Tanksley]

On 06 Jun 2000 17:34:20 -0400, Andrew M. Kuchling wrote:
>wtanksle at dolphin.openprojects.net (William Tanksley) writes:
>> I'm not the one that's claiming that removing case-sensitivity will ruin
>> Python.  My claim is very simple: first, it's a minor change for us to
>> make, and second, it helps newbies.

>Like Aahz, I don't think the change is that minor.

I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree, then.  Because I can't see
the change causing me to care -- my coding style will hardly change.

Now, the change WILL cause old code to not work -- but in case you missed
it, it's been established that Py3K is going to do that.  Adding or
removing this feature will not fix the code.

>I'm also doubtful of the "helps newbies" claim; unless there have been
>some other citations in this thread that I missed, we have exactly one
>study using exactly one programming environment that reported CS
>(case-sensitivity) was a problem, and even that report says "most [users]
>continued to type case-incorrect tokens in their programs for a short
>period", which implies that they did eventually stop.  The evidence is
>hardly overwhelming, and basically purely anecdotal.

Now here we can make some progress, I think.  Once CP4E is funded, I would
hope that this is something they would do some work in.  Hopefully before
the change is finalised in Py3K.

However, from my experience teaching people programming and typing, people
don't normally think or communicate in a case sensitive way, and a large
portion of people have a really hard time doing so.  I've hypothesised
that this is an artifact of visual versus auditory learning.

>IMHO, if GvR was inventing a completely new language for teaching,
>then it would be worthwhile to debate whether it should be CS or CI.
>But he's not; Python is an implemented language with a sizable and
>growing user base that's used to CS, and a number of published books
>and other materials that will be invalidated by switching to CI. 

And the fact is that they're going to be invalidated anyhow.  Nothing we
do to CS will change that.  Part of the reason for Py3K is to allow Guido
to make large, backwards-incompatible changes.

>A.M. Kuchling			http://starship.python.net/crew/amk/

-- 
-William "Billy" Tanksley