case sensitivity

[Dave Jones]

>From article <1989Apr21.194615.5344 at utzoo.uucp>, by henry at utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer):
> In article <13159 at dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> jskuskin at eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Jeffrey Kuskin) writes:
>>    Why is C case-sensitive? ...
> 
> Why not?  The real question is why things should be case-*in*sensitive.


And the real answer is... (ta ta!)

... so you can talk to other engineers about the program without
saying, "The first A is capitalized, and the S in Set, and ... no not
that one..."

Somewhere or another I heard of the "telephone test" for programs.
I'm sorry I can't credit the author.  The test, which is for judging the
self-documentation properties of a program, is whether or not you
can read it to someone over the telephone, and in doing so convey the
meaning of the program.

I determined then, that if I ever write my dream-language, it's identifiers
at least will pass the telephone test.  The language will not only
not distinguish case, but underscores will not be significant
in indentifiers.  Of course, there would be a way to distinguish a
canonical spelling for an identifier, for purposes of external linkage,
probably the way it was spelled in the declaration.  And there would
need to be a ctags-like program which knew about the convention.