Case Sensitivity and Learnability

[Will Rose]

Tres Seaver <tseaver at starbase.neosoft.com> wrote:
: Thinking about the notion of case sensitivity as a barrier to CP4E, as
: advocated quite glibly at IPC8, I typed up this module on the plane to
: explore the consequences of allowing/encouraging users to enter case-
: mangled code, especially in non-interactive uses (I think that distinc-
: tion may be important, because readability is almost insignificatn in
: an interactive session).


Your arguments are reasonable, but they are arguments against systems
which are both case-insensitive _and_ case-preserving.  The trouble with
CI/CP is that the compiler sees a different set of tokens from those seen
by the programmer, and it's sometimes difficult for the programmer to
realise this.  If unskilled programmers find case too difficult or
distracting, the cure is to force a single case, either upper or lower. 
This could be done by an (optional?) compiler switch.


Will
cwr at cts.com