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

[Tim Rowe]

In article <slrn8jlm1j.bkc.wtanksle at dolphin.openprojects.net>, 
wtanksle at dolphin.openprojects.net (William Tanksley) wrote:

> >Great. Ever maintain anybody else's code?
> 
> Are you trying to insult me?  Or are you trying to make some kind of
> point?  If the latter, you have no idea what my experience level is, so 
> to
> communicate your argument you'll have to explain yourself more 
> completely.

I'm saying that /I/ write code that's easily maintainable in whatever 
language, I expect /you/ write code that's easily maintainable in whatever 
language, but when we're confronted with code that third parties have 
written it more often than not is /not/ easily maintainable. I consider it 
a highly desirable feature of a language if it makes it harder to write 
unmaintainable code.

> *My* point is that Python's job is to make it possible to write really
> good-looking code.  It's my job, as the programmer or employer, to 
> prevent
> bad-looking code.

I'm not in the fortunate position of always being able to control the 
third-party code I have to work with.

> >> Take a lesson from the people complaining about Python's 
> > indentation: one
> >> of the leading false accusations is that it's inflexible, that it 
> > won't
> >> allow people to choose thier own indentation.
> 
> >Lesson taken. I won't give any credence to those who complain about 
> case >sensitivity on the same grounds.
> 
> But this mythical person complaining about case-sensitivity is 
> *correct*;
> Python truly *is* case-sensitive.

And Python truly *does* let one choose the indentation level.