Language change and code breaks (fwd)

[Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters]

"Bjorn Pettersen" <BPettersen at NAREX.com> wrote:
|TRuE, tHe ExPRESsiVity oF ThE lANGuaGE is ProBAbLY nOt cRipPled,
|hOWEvEr, tHere ARe SigNIficantLy FeweR ideNtIFIeRs AVaILABlE whICh mEAns
|iT is LESs eXPRessIvE. IN pArTicULar, cOMmON Idioms liKE naMiNg CLASseS
|stArTiNg WiTh UppER cASE lETtERS, AND instaNCeS OF THose cLAsSes
|begINNiNG with A lOwER caSE LettER CaN NO LongeR Be usED.

I don't really have a strong opinion on the case-sensitivity thing.  I
think it would probably be a good idea in a brand-new language, but is
probably too much work to try to change Python (given existing code).

But one thing that really annoys the hell out of me is the "argument"
that always comes up, like Pettersen's above.  The allegation is that if
a language was case-insensitive, variables would have jarring random
case like in above (sometimes this is adduced to "prove" that
case-sensitivity improves readability).  I've programmed for a large
number of years with case-insensitive languages, and I have never ONCE
seen code that looked like the above.  It's just not what people do.
Likewise, in Python you rarely see syntactical but silly choices like:

    >>> xlsoALwl390sslkslWW = 37
    >>> xlsoALwL390sslkslWW = 38
    >>> print xlsoALwL390sslkslWW,xlsoALwl390sslkslWW
    38 37

Yours, Lulu...