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From: dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Modern languages are case sensitive?
Date: 16 Oct 2001 04:42:34 -0700
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My own feeling on this issue is that

a) the following program is quite awful, and should
   obviously not be permitted in any language:

     Main : integer;
     main : integer;
     ...

b) The following program is undesirable, and preferably
   should not be permitted:

     Main : integer;
     ...
     main := 2;

   It cannot possibly be helpful for the reader to use
   random casing like this.

This is the semantics implemented by gnat -y and thus the
language we use for writing GNAT (i.e. in the GNAT sources
it is a fatal error to use the wrong casing for something)

Whether I would go as far as changing the language to
require case consistency, I don't know.

By the way, if I was writing a C compiler, I would include
a warning if two identifiers differed only in case, so that
the same desirable semantics is achieved.

And I can't help but get a chuckle out of someone thinking
of Unix as a "modern operating system". Indeed if you
do look at modern operating systems (e.g. Windows XP, or
OS/2), they are case insensitive. The case sensitive decision of C and
Unix was in my opinion never well justified or thought out, and now it
just gets copied.
Old technological decisions get reinforced over and over
again by compatibility and familiarity considerations 
regardless of their merit (*)

Robert Dewar

(*) e.g. the gauge use by Amtrak is related to the separation of
wheels on Roman war chariots :-)