Case Sensitivity and Learnability

[Donn Cave]

Quoth Will Rose <cwr at crash.cts.com>:
...
| This discussion has made it pretty clear to me that there are (at least)
| two sorts of people - those who are case-sensitive readers, and those
| who aren't.  I don't know how one gets into one category or another; it
| doesn't seem to be language-sensitive.  (Is Japanese case-sensitive?).
| The existence of the two types would explain why so many people like
| the Microsoft CI/CP filesystems, which I, being case-sensitive, loathe.
| It also means that there is no real way of settling the argument, since
| each group will always prefer a different solution.

I've missed some of the discussion, so I hope I'm not repeating
something that's already been chewed over, but I just wanted to
point out that there are indeed two sorts of people - one believes
that there are two sorts of people, and the other doesn't!  Ha, ha ha.
Also I must add that there are those who have no trouble spelling
things right, and those who can't do it to save their lives - what
will Python 2.0 have for them?  Wouldn't it be nice if it could
accept MessageRecieved as a valid spelling for MessageReceived,
for example?

Anyway, just wanted to point out that for some of us, Python is part
of a larger system of software and not a universe unto itself.  Where
I am, it seems like this external world is case sensitive.  On UNIX
and BeOS anyway, case has meaning.  I write BeOS system interfaces,
and the idea that window.PostMessage(B_QUIT_REQUESTED) might just as
well be spelled in whatever case suits the writer is unthinkable.
Maybe the perspective behind it is, are we Python programmers who
happen to work with BeOS, or BeOS programmers who happen to work
in Python?  I think the latter, and at least when I have this hat
on I don't just prefer case sensitivity due to a quirk in my own
nature, I need it.

	Donn Cave, donn at u.washington.edu