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=0.2 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,66bc6b039f1e005d X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: nickerson@pundit.ds.boeing.com () Subject: Re: Case for case-sensitivity (Was: Three simple questions) Date: 2000/10/14 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 681497563 Sender: nickerson@mirage.boeing.com () X-Nntp-Posting-Host: pundit.ds.boeing.com References: <2BED68CA963D6D55.A78776F656DA0452.75A61ED22116F1B6@lp.airnews.net> <39e2588f.21565740@news.demon.co.uk> <39E436F8.A11E1842@bton.ac.uk> Organization: Boeing Defense & Space Group / Software Systems Reply-To: nickerson@pundit.ds.boeing.com () Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 2000-10-14T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article , Frank Christiny writes: |>> > |>> > In the Company of my friend. In the company of my friend. |>> > Ada presentation today. ADA presentation today. |>> > Standing by the Bank. Standing by the bank. .. |> The point was to emphasize that for a human parser, the |> sentences are different. Even without the context they are very |> different. (The river could hardly be expected to have a Bank, |> unless it's the "Left Bank" of course). The same is true in a |> case-sensitive language. You can do "lazy" stuff like that there, |> such as I mentioned earlier; and, without regard for the context. yes, we have human parsers and computer parsers; that is the real point I believe; humans do better with this kind of context than computers do; consider complexity however; the fact is that humans also do a poor job at times, get confused, and get overwhelmed by complexity that would never faze a computer; confusion while programming is a very bad thing; so we simplify and wipe out an annoying set of errors by going with a case-insensitve language; meaningful names aside, how clever would it be to use as my variables the 5 character, all {a,A}; that gives me 2**5=32 choices which is plenty for local variables {aaaaa,aaaaA,aaaAa,aaaAA, ..., AAAAA}; horrid cleverness perhaps for a person and trivial for the machine; previous points on valuing the reader over the writer are also well taken; (aside: if we're so good parsing then why are there so many Usenet misunderstandings and why did emoticons get invented;) |> Sure, but you missed the point again. The language does look |> confusing to a case-sensitive newcomer. I guess the same happens |> going the other way around. In any case, thanks to all of you |> guys' input I've begun to see the rationale behind |> case-insensitivity and, most of all, I recognize it seems to work. |> It shows to what extent Adaites would go to avert preventable |> errors. Now, all I need to do is get used to it... |>-- |>Frank Christiny fchris@pdq.net |>Sr. Software Engineer Lockheed Martin Space Operations |>Houston, Texas, USA http://freeweb.pdq.net/fchris/ each language does take some getting used to; I used FORTRAN and PL/I and had never considered case sensitivity before being exposed to C on the VAX; the first time I got bitten with i /= I amazed naive me; but then it takes a while to believe that it's ok to program in lower case RATHER THAN EVERYTHING BUT PRINTED "Error Messages" IN UPPER CASE; (which humorously brings me back to emoticons - nowdays this is always derided as shouting rather than being a STYLE); --bn (Bart Nickerson) nickerson@pundit.ds.boeing.com (206) 662-0183