Case sensitivity

[Alex Martelli]

On Tuesday 25 February 2003 10:31 am, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
   ...
> Think of it this way: you don't pay anything for the benefit
> of using the software, so the net total is still a good buy.

Sure, and this would still hold if ten other warts were introduced
into Python just for fun.  Is this an argument for introducing them?


> Seriously, I don't see the point in this discussion.

Take it up with the people who started the thread, then kept
calling me directly to answer in it, and are now keeping it alive
by asserting things I consider false, such as the "fact" (?) that
case sensitivity "enforces a convention" when it clearly does
not.  I don't see the point in this thread existing at all, either,
but there is always "a point" in indicating when assertions are
counter-factual -- avoiding the risk that new readers, not
familiar with the previous rounds of the same discussion, become
erroneoneusly convinced of such falsehoods.

No doubt this thread will peter out again eventually, as all
things must, either when some people stop asserting things
that just aren't so, or when others convince themselves that
the confutations to the falsehoods have been established in
a sufficiently clear manner, or simply grow too bored of the
whole mess.  At that point, I believe no good at all will have
been served, and much time and energy wasted, by the whole
thread's existence.  <shrug> I didn't start the thread, and I
don't think it's reasonable to demand that I let such beauties
as that "enforcing" idea stand unchallenged to confuse and
mislead new readers.

A minor wart in a free, useful language is still a wart, and in
my opinion it serves no purpose to pretend it isn't, even though
it will never be fixed.


Alex