Case-sensitivity: why -- or why not? (was Re: Damnation!)

[Tim Peters]

[Guido van Rossum]
> ...
> Yet, here are some of the reasons why I am considering making Python
> case-insensitive:
>
> (1) Randy Pausch, a professor at CMU, found, when teaching Python to
> non-CS students in the context of Alice (www.alice.org), that the
> number one problem his students were having was to remember that case
> matters in Python.

I haven't used Alice.  The counter-argument I've heard from some who have is
that this was much more a problem with Alice than with Python, in that Alice
exposed various predefined modules and classes with LongAttributeNames but
in a variety of distinct styles:  case-sensitivity hurt because the graphics
methods used case inconsistently in their names, and nobody could keep all
its idiosyncracies straight.  With benefit of full ignorance, I have to say
that sounds more plausible to me than that humans are baffled by
*consistent* use of mixed case.  you find this sentence *inherently*
jarring; i do too <wink>.

> ...
> I am a very case-sensitive person myself: ...

DITTO.  Tools to help people get the case straight will be wonderful, but to
the extent that case-insensitivity is an extraordinary claim, let's demand
extraordinary evidence before building it into the language.  Didn't the ABC
project run usability studies on this aspect too?  IIRC, ABC was also
case-sensitive.

> (The number two problem was 1/2 == 0; there was no
> significalt number three problem.)

I'm wholly comfortable with 1/2 == 0 myself, but am equally comfortable with
rationals, floats, constructives or BCD, and can easily see why 1/2 == 0 is
a bad idea for computer newbies (more, it seems a bad idea for just about
everyone except system programmers -- which we both were when this decision
was made).  So I'm not just flaming Randy <wink>.

wondering-whether-unicode-numbers-can-suffer-mixed-case-ly y'rs  - tim