Re: Case sensitivity (was Re: no title)

[jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net (Jim Rogers)]

Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote in message news:<1054736576.85233@master.nyc.kbcfp.com>...
> Jim Rogers wrote:
> > Strictly speaking, acronyms are not English. They are technical
> > terms relating to a narrow discipline.
> 
> And programs are full of technical terms relating to the
> narrow discipline in which they are working. So you make
> my point for me.

I do not see how this makes your point.
Most acronyms are commonly used with only upper case 
notation. For instance, one I am dealing with is AFSCN.
There is no acronym in the same domain with the same
letters but a different mixture of case.

For such acronyms case sensitivity is no advantage, since
AFSCN and afScn must refer to the same acronym. The use of
upper case is a convention rather than a requirement.

Making a case-sensitive distinction between AFSCN and afScn
would only compound confusion. 

In an Ada program I would expect values corresponding to an
acronym to be defined as enumeration values. Variables should
not be named after an acronym. Acronyms have a constant value.
Variables have variable values. Acronyms map more correctly to
enumeration values in Ada and C++, or constants in either language,
than to variables.

Is it considered good style to have functions with the following
names all in the same C++ program: 
  Main
  MAIN
  mAin
  MaIn

I do not believe this is considered a good coding style. Why not?
It takes full advantage of case sensitivity, which C and C++ deem
good. The problem is that the function "main" has a very special
role in a C or C++ program. Similarly named functions can be
confusing to the maintainer of the program. Of course, the compiler
has no problem distinguishing between the different symbols.
Coding style issues always deal with problems for the reader and
maintainer of the code. 

Case sensitivity was left out of Ada to prevent the kind of
overloading of symbols that causes clear confusion. Common Ada
development environments will enforce case consistency for
neatness. The difference between this and requiring case
sensitivity is that in Ada this is merely a coding style issue.
In C++ it becomes a coding style and syntax issue. The compiler
may have a different opinion of the meaning of an identifier than
does the human reader of the code. Such differences of opinion
can be problematic.

Jim Rogers