Case sensitive file names

[Moderator, John Quarterman]

From: seismo!hadron!jsdy at sally.utexas.edu (Joseph S. D. Yao)
To: ut-sally!std-unix at sally.utexas.edu
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 86 11:52:40 edt
Summary: Case sensitivity is useful; harms only those not used to it.
Organization: Hadron, Inc., Fairfax, VA

In <5860 at ut-sally.UUCP>, mark at cbosgd.att.com (Mark Horton) writes:
> Message-Id: <8609291633.AA10479 at cbosgd.ATT.COM>
> Newsgroups: mod.std.unix
> 
> I note that the committee recently decided that all file names
> in conforming systems must be case sensitive, for example,
> makefile and Makefile must be different files.  ...
> I think this is a mistake.  UNIX is the only major operating system
> that treats things like file names, logins, host names, and commands
> as case sensitive.  The net effect of this is that users get
> confused, since they have to get the capitalization right every time.

Since this is primarily an opinion, I'll say that I think any such
"confusion" is a product of someone getting wedded to odd ways of
doing things in a single-case environment, and not really learning
their own language.  Only the followers of the late great e. e.
cummings have any problem with "normal" use of different cases.
(Yes, German does it differently.  Fine!  AS LONG AS THERE IS A
STANDARD CONVENTION, I am willing to let Nouns be Uppercasen.)
I use both cases for reasons and, now that I have been weaned away
(for years!) from single-case environments, I find them very limiting.
After all, we DO have two cases here, and they are separate characters
that can be used separately.  Not to mention that UC-lc conversion
is only easy in the USASCII standard -- ISO and other conversions may
be quite difficult.

The sole time I like case independence is on the occasional text
search (often because some @#$% case-independent language allowed
a whimsical program to vary case without care).  Vi/ex's ":set ic"
mode works well for this, but I wish there were an "ignorecase"
flag to the grep family.  (-ic:ascii / -ic:deutsche / ... ?)
[ There is:  "grep -i"  -mod ]

(Anecdote: UPPER CASE ONLY is a product of the original TTYs' design.
A study had said that  l o w e r  case was easier to read!  but it
was decided to be UC-only, when a Board member asked the president
whether he wanted to be responsible when the name of God came over the
wires ... in lower case ...)

The emulation argument,
> Another problem is that emulations on other operating systems,
> such as VMS or MS DOS, will become impossible without drastic
> changes to their file systems.
almost swayed me, except that this is not an emulation document,
this is an OS document!
[ It's neither:  it's an interface document.  -mod ]
  And I remembered that it's quite possible
to provide a "flexnames"-type of mapping: RATFOR does something
similar.  Perhaps POSIX might wish to add a codicil, regarding
emulations ("hosted" implementations?), that gives some relaxation
and some requirements for minimum performance.  Perhaps they do
not want to relax their standards for emulations at all.  Their
privilege (considering that the Committee includes many vendors).
[ Hosted systems have been considered in excruciating detail
in writing the standard.  -mod ]

In article <5865 at ut-sally.UUCP>, MRC%PANDA at SUMEX-AIM (Mark Crispin) writes:
>case sensitivity of the Unix filesystem is a real drag, and something that
>has regularly and reliably caused me problems when working in a heterogenous
>environment.

See above.

There follow several comments on the use of mixed case.  OF COURSE
people won't use mixed case when the operating system stands in the
way of using it comfortably!  And if hackers aren't taught better
than to mix 1, I, L, O, and 0 in their codes (as a certain major
stinker of a company does -- using them EXCLUSIVELY -- in software
released with an alleged source-code license!), then people should
undertake to educate them ... and their alleged educators.

When I name a file FooBar, I better well come back and find it named
FooBar ... NOT FOOBAR or foobar or (God help us) FoObAr.

>		    ...  It's *so* much easier to keep the shift lock key down...

I HATE it when people do this to my terminal ... and leave it
that way ...
-- 

	Joe Yao		hadron!jsdy at seismo.{CSS.GOV,ARPA,UUCP}
			jsdy at hadron.COM (not yet domainised)

Volume-Number: Volume 7, Number 26