Yet Another Case Question
Erik Max Francis
max at alcyone.com
Sat Feb 22 23:21:21 EST 2003
"David Mertz, Ph.D." wrote:
> - If a language were case-insensitive, users would use absurdly mixed
> case variables, e.g. "maXImUMCoLumnS". This is just factually
> false--many millions of lines of code in existing case-insensitive
> languages fail to show such a problem.
Sure, people won't deliberately use bizarre choices of mixed case except
to deliberately prove a point, but it seems undeniable that allowing
case insensitivity _will_ result in different people using different
capitalization conventions. To use your example, some will write
`maximumcolumns', some will write `maximumColumns', and some will write
`MaximumColumns'. This is, needless to say, obnoxious. I don't think
you can really argue against this point, since the case insensitive
languages I've been exposed to one sees it over and over again.
> - Case-sensitivity allows conventions such as allcaps CONSTANTS.
> Such
> conventions are indeed good... and are widely used in
> case-insensitive languages as well.
But the convention is much weaker if anyone can write them as
`constants', thus diluting their usefulness as a convention. It's not
as strong a point, but it still opens itself up to variation -- and that
variation is inevitable, unless you institute draconian style guide
which amount to enforcing case sensitivity in the first place.
--
Erik Max Francis / max at alcyone.com / http://www.alcyone.com/max/
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