Case-insensitive selectors
jarvisb at timken.com
jarvisb at timken.com
Wed Jan 28 12:31:49 UTC 1998
I personally prefer case-sensitive languages to case-insensitive
languages. If I want to have selectors or procedures named abc, Abc,
ABC, and aBc in a program I darn well expect the language to allow it
and not try to limit what can be done. I also *HATE* underscores and
dashes in identifier, selector, or procedure names. If I wanted to
PROGRAM-IN-COBOL or PROGRAM_IN_PL_1 <gag!> I'd do so. I don't. Keep
Smalltalk case-sensitive!!!! :-)
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Date: 27 January 1998, 18:55:59 EST
>From Patrick Logan patrickl at INTERNET
patrickl at servio.gemstone.com
squeak at INTERNET
squeak at cs.uiuc.edu
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Subject: Case-insensitive selectors
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From my point of view (I am _not_ one of the "original" smalltalk
designers) it's just the other way around. In a static language
you have all the time you need for compiling and linking and doing
case insensitive comparisons. Smalltalk, however, does lots of
things with its selectors. You can "perform:" them which is in
basically a lookup of the signature. In principle, this happens
every time a message is sent. I'd say if the method lookup takes
longer for case-insensitive comparisons this a very good reason to
stay case insensitive.
I am not advocating for case-insensitity but in response to the
message above, if one were to adopt this policy:
(1) It would seem to me selectors could be replaced by all upper- or
lower-case selectors at compile (i.e. "accept") time. Then all lookups
would be canonical.
(2) Common Lisp and other Lisps are case-insensitive and work fine in
an interactive environment. Its syntax is more suited though since it
can easily use - as a separator rather than _ which requires a <shift>
key.
(3) WithoutASeparatorLike_or-IdGuessMostPeopleWouldStillTypeLikeThis
--
Patrick Logan mailto:patrickl at gemstone.com
Voice 503-533-3365 Fax 503-629-8556
Gemstone Systems, Inc http://www.gemstone.com
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