[r6rs-discuss] Case sensitivity

[Shiro Kawai]

It's interesting (no sarcasm; honestly) to observe by which point
people identify Scheme.   I always felt case insensitivity in
Lisp world is a historical artifact, from the time when you
had only capital letters on computers.  But I'm a late comer
so I may be wrong.  (I started playing with Lisp around late-80s,
and never wrote a serious chunk of Lisp/Scheme code until mid-90s.)

But the point taken.  If you identify Scheme in its case
insensitive nature, you'll feel a big discontinuity in the change.

Other critiques to R6RS may also be boiled down to the
difference of people's perception of "What makes Scheme Scheme?".


From: "Guillermo J. Rozas" <gjr6765 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [r6rs-discuss] Case sensitivity
Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 16:36:45 -0800

> > Since we don't need to choose one or the other now, how about
> > giving it a try?
> 
> Giving case sensitivity a try?  Sorry, but I do that all the time by  
> programming
> in other languages.  I don't like it there any more than I do in Scheme.
> 
> As I said earlier, almost every project that I'm involved with starts  
> by outlawing
> differences based on case even if the language allows it.
> 
> With good reason.
> 
> Hence, in what way is the language case sensitivity helping me?

Here you're arguing case sensitivity is no better than case
insensitivity.  I'm not arguing with that.  In the part I replied
to you, you told case sensitivity is worse, since you'd be confused.
That's what I argued.   And you seem to know you won't be confused,
with a sane convention like you mentioned.

But if you think case insensitivity is a part of identity of
Scheme, of course you'll push case insensitivity if all other
things are equal.  I understand that.


> > On the other hand, I've got some headaches working on DSL in
> > Lisp/Scheme that interacts with case-sensitive world, when
> > the implementation is case-insensitive.
> 
> I am puzzled about that one.
> 
> Are you trying to embed the DSLs in Scheme?

Not just 'trying'.  I've been using them in production code for years.

> Don't the many other aspects of Scheme such as the
> parenthesis-based prefix syntax already cause you much
> more grief?

On the contrary, I sometimes even write C in S-expression
these days.  It allows me to use macros much powerful than
the original C, which is liberating.

--shiro