Case sensitivity

[Alex Martelli]

Erik Max Francis wrote:
   ...
> Again, you're simply ignoring the situations in which such confusions
> can happen.  If I post to Usenet and talk about "buying some coke," it
> may indeed very unclear from context whether I mean a soft drink or an
> illegal drug.

Or coal.  Sure.  Just as it's unclear what exactly you mean if you
talk about "buying some grass".  Point is, people are not all that
case-sensitive, and won't raise a NameError in either case.

So for example in:

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=coke&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&selm=3a52879c%40Orion&rnum=8

the post's author can quietly say things such as "Have a coke, and 
have a great day." without risking being accused of promoting drug
use.  It's just not a big deal.  The article's author is not even being
sloppy -- he's apparently using lowercase c for the drink, uppercase
C for the _company_ that sells the drink, quite competently and
consistently throughout the article.

It's not a problem -- unless we want to make it one by making a
language case-sensitive and demanding it raise NameError and
the like for such trifles.  Pah.


Alex