From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII X-Google-Thread: 103376,a50a3c40267219cc X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-10-15 05:54:17 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.uchicago.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.erols.net!news-out.worldnet.att.net.MISMATCH!wn3feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.71!wnfilter1!worldnet-localpost!bgtnsc06-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3BCADC8A.7CADA027@worldnet.att.net> From: James Rogers X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: The caselessness is one of the things I like best! References: <3105e154.0110150021.32ff5426@posting.google.com> <9qeg5r$266$1@trog.dera.gov.uk> <9qei6k$3hj$1@newstoo.ericsson.se> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 12:54:16 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.86.32.153 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc06-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 1003150456 12.86.32.153 (Mon, 15 Oct 2001 12:54:16 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 12:54:16 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:14523 Date: 2001-10-15T12:54:16+00:00 List-Id: Gerhard H�ring wrote: > > On Mon, 15 Oct 2001 14:06:18 +0200, Petter Fryklund wrote: > > If the only difference between two entities is the case, I think the > > program will be very hard to maintain. > > True. The compiler probably should show a warning in this case. But > Ada's case insensitivity is so stupid it hurts. Don't tell me it's > needed for your weird 7 bit processor with EBDIC (sp?) character set. > Cross-compile if you need to support such broken processors. > > I want inconsistent casing to be a syntax error in a language. Oh yes. > And the keywords be either lower or upper case, too (I'd prefer upper > case as in MODULA-2/3). Ada intentionally left out case sensitivity because of its emphasis on human readability. There was no processor-based reason as you have implied. In fact, it takes less code to parse a string with case sensitivity than with case insensitivity. Case sensitivity as found in C, C++, and Java leads to people using several identifiers such as "Count", "count", and "COUNT" in the same code. Human brains have been trained to ignore such differences in text. The use of such similar identifiers can cause serious confusion for humans reading your code. Note that the C family of languages provides case sensitivity without enforcing consistent casing. It merely identifies instances of improperly defined identifiers. Your proposal to make Ada case sensitive and enforce consistent case usage would be just as repulsive to C programmers as is case insensitivity. When you make the claim that Ada would be popular if it jus looked like C, you imply that C programmers do not want to learn another language. It is like saying that Swedish would be more popular if it just looked like French. Look at the reaction of C "hard heads". They find both C++ and Java revolting. Making Ada look like C++ or Java would reduce Ada's readability without making it one bit more popular. There would be nothing to gain from such a move. Jim Rogers Colorado Springs, Colorado USA