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

[Les Schaffer]

Robin Becker said:

> The whole argument that, for a short term gain in popularity amongst
> toddlers or whatever, you should dumb down a good programming
> language seems pretty flawed to me.

ahh. finally a voice of sanity.

in the latest Python-URL! announcement it was said in regards to case
sensitivity issue:

    A few noteworthy posts in the thread:
    GvR, on the rationale for the potential change:
     http://www.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2000-May/057990.html

So i went to the link and discovered, not one, but two, count em, TWO
"reasons".

1.) Reason number one: young people might learn python better when its
case-insensitive.

2.) Reason number two: Guido gets mail with the words FTPlib and
String in the body of the text.

With overpowering reasons like this from the author of Python and the
one who said this:

> This is an example of what I meant when I said "voting doesn't
> help".

> You're saying it's unacceptable -- a vote.  But you don't say *why*
> you vote that way, so your vote gets multiplied by zero

i dread the changes that will be upcoming in the Python community. i
mean, GvR gives us a whole sermonon on how we should be cAREFUL in
expressing the wHYS involved in the debate. Then he sets the level of
the discussion to unimagined lows by virtue of the "reasons" he puts
forward.

i can only venture a guess as to why things are headed this
way. Everyone who codes smells money, IPO money. So they figure if
they can twiddle their language to meet the masses, the unwashed
masses who can't learn case-sensitivity, OR SO THE EXPERTS TELL US,
then there is a fortune to be made.

Absurd notion, right?

But consider this, if python weren't suddenly (maybe thats the wrong
word) emerging as an excellent scripting language at a time when IPO
mania was at its peak (well maybe slightly post peak now), would we be
having these "in-depth" discussions about the optimization of the
langauge via case-insensivity based on towering arguments like 1. and
2. above?

Anyway, tahts as absurd as i can get. i just can't think of any other
reason why the language and newsgroup has to waste its time with a
discussion on case-sensitivity.

disGrunTledly-YOurs

lES sCHAFFER