Case sensitivity

[Mel Wilson]

In article <tyf8ywc8on0.fsf at pcepsft001.cern.ch>,
Jacek Generowicz <jacek.generowicz at cern.ch> wrote:
>Alex Martelli <aleaxit at yahoo.com> writes:
>> Python community, seem to have accumulated too many people with
>> their main background in case-sensitive languages (C/C++/Perl/
>> Java/...) rather than case-insensitive ones (Pascal/Eiffel/VB...)
>> for case insensitivity to ever get a "fair hearing".  Pity:-(.
>
>Heh. I wonder how much less popular Python would have been if it had
>been case insensitive from the start. My guess is that case
>insensitivity would have merely been another one of those popular
>newbie FAQs (like self, significant whitespace, etc.), while those who
>gave Python a try would soon learn to appreciate it as one of many of
>Python's "revolutionary" sensible ideas.

   Not that I know, but:  If Python names were case
insensitive, then Python's dictionaries.. the ones returned
by `locals()` and `globals()` for instance.. would have to
do case insensitive lookups.  This would put them out of
sync with other dictionaries, notably the ones people might
use in `exec .. in` statements or calls to `eval`.  Unless
string comparisons were changed to be case-insensitive..

   (Or force case normalizatrion within every LOAD_FAST
operation at run time.)

   Somebody (Nietzsche?) described the human being as the
animal that can get used to anything.  It could be done.

        Regards.        Mel.