Language change and code breaks

[Grant Edwards]

In article <3B55D6B9.3E2B933E at alcyone.com>, Erik Max Francis wrote:
>Alex Martelli wrote:
>
>> I consider myself a member of the literate minority (well
>> within the upper centile on all relevant demographics), and
>> having a recently-invented typographic prettiness, such as
>> letter-cd tcase, affect meaning, has always struck me as a deeply
>> flawed idea.

Seems quite intuitive to me.  When I was learning to write
English, incorrect case was considered a spelling error just
like using the wrong letter.  Having a computer language act
that way makes sense to me.

>> I hated it when I first met it in C and Unix,
>> and a quarter of a century hasn't reconciled me to it.
>
>Makes perfect sense to me.  What's the point of having
>differing capitalization if it isn't meaningful?
>
>Otherwise every programmer can use their own capitalization for
>each identifier, which is just confusing.

I think using inconsistent case for identifiers should be
considered an error whether or not the compiler cares about it.

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  If elected, Zippy
                                  at               pledges to each and every
                               visi.com            American a 55-year-old
                                                   houseboy...