3 ms·

Unix filesystems? Names in programming languages? English? Care to elaborate?

Pxtl 8y ago
Case-sensitivity is such a rare concept in English that any API or programming language that is based on it cannot be semantically thought of as English, even though it uses English words for all its function and class names. I've used systems that are case sensitive and systems that are case insensitive, and the former are responsible for an order of magnitude number of bugs more than the latter.
- dtech 8y ago
  CasE-SenSITIVITY IS rarE IN ENGLISH? I WiSh SOMEone would'VE TOLD mE EARliER!
  - palunon 8y ago
    Tell it to the lawyers writing disclaimers in uppercase.
    - drdaeman 8y ago
      That's an artifact of the years past, still alive because everyone is too afraid to do something about it, and most lawyers just don't care about styling. Every time I copy a license to the project, I edit the formatting to use Markdown bold (or sometimes italic/emphasis) instead of ALL THAT UPPERCASE SCREAMING. Much easier for the eyes. IANAL, but I believe that was the intent. Just to highlight the important sections to be even safer with "you have been warned about this and can't say you haven't noticed it". If any lawyer out there knows if this is correct understanding or not - would be interesting to hear.
  - acdha 8y ago
    When was the last time you had someone refuse to deliver a letter to YOUR NAME in YOUR CITY? Ever have trouble catching a plane because your drivers license says Alice but your boarding pass says ALICE? Normal people don't think of case as changing the value in the same way that even abbreviations or alternate spellings do — I know people who've had trouble boarding planes because they have ID/boarding passes which are inconsistent on, say, using ü or ue – especially annoying when the latter usage was just to work around a bug in someone else's system.
    - ghostly_s 8y ago
      Capitalization of proper nouns is a core semantic feature of English. While I'm sure you'll be tempted to hand-wave it away as a special case (see what I did there) of case-sensitivity, it nonetheless refutes your argument.
      - Pxtl 8y ago
        The problem comes primarily from systems that allow identifiers (or other semantically meaningful concepts like format strings) to differ only by case. This could be considered a side-quest of the naive implementation of case-sensitivity. "Case-sensitive but identifiers cannot differ only by case" would be a reasonable compromise. "Martin" and "martin" are obviously not different names. Martin may be more correct, but allowing "martin" as a separate name is worse.
      - anticensor 8y ago
        > Capitalization of proper nouns is a core semantic feature of English. It is a core spelling rule of English. They could have gone the German way, with all nouns capitalised and compound words without spaces.
      - acdha 8y ago
        No, as you'd learn if you tried to find counter-examples for the cases I mentioned. Computer systems commonly treat terms which differ only in case as separate values but humans almost always try to do the opposite. People have preferences for proper usage but that's quite different from treating alternate case values as separate because people try to recognize the intention even if it's poorly expressed.
- dghf 8y ago
  > Case sensitivity is a mistake in every platform that embraces it. > I've used systems that are case sensitive and systems that are case insensitive, and the latter are responsible for an order of magnitude number of bugs more than the former. Do you have "latter" and "former" transposed in the second quote? If not, I'm confused.
  - Pxtl 8y ago
    Oops, yes, corrected.
- cryptonector 8y ago
  Rare? Practically every programming language is case-sensitive. Unix filesystems are generally case-sensitive. You statements make no sense anyways. What is the antecedent of 'it' in "... any API or programming language that is based on it ..."? Since when are APIs / programming languages "semantically thought of as English"?!

Pxtl 8y ago

Case-sensitivity is such a rare concept in English that any API or programming language that is based on it cannot be semantically thought of as English, even though it uses English words for all its function and class names. I've used systems that are case sensitive and systems that are case insensitive, and the former are responsible for an order of magnitude number of bugs more than the latter.

dtech 8y ago
CasE-SenSITIVITY IS rarE IN ENGLISH? I WiSh SOMEone would'VE TOLD mE EARliER!
- palunon 8y ago
  Tell it to the lawyers writing disclaimers in uppercase.
  - drdaeman 8y ago
    That's an artifact of the years past, still alive because everyone is too afraid to do something about it, and most lawyers just don't care about styling. Every time I copy a license to the project, I edit the formatting to use Markdown bold (or sometimes italic/emphasis) instead of ALL THAT UPPERCASE SCREAMING. Much easier for the eyes. IANAL, but I believe that was the intent. Just to highlight the important sections to be even safer with "you have been warned about this and can't say you haven't noticed it". If any lawyer out there knows if this is correct understanding or not - would be interesting to hear.
- acdha 8y ago
  When was the last time you had someone refuse to deliver a letter to YOUR NAME in YOUR CITY? Ever have trouble catching a plane because your drivers license says Alice but your boarding pass says ALICE? Normal people don't think of case as changing the value in the same way that even abbreviations or alternate spellings do — I know people who've had trouble boarding planes because they have ID/boarding passes which are inconsistent on, say, using ü or ue – especially annoying when the latter usage was just to work around a bug in someone else's system.
  - ghostly_s 8y ago
    Capitalization of proper nouns is a core semantic feature of English. While I'm sure you'll be tempted to hand-wave it away as a special case (see what I did there) of case-sensitivity, it nonetheless refutes your argument.
    - Pxtl 8y ago
      The problem comes primarily from systems that allow identifiers (or other semantically meaningful concepts like format strings) to differ only by case. This could be considered a side-quest of the naive implementation of case-sensitivity. "Case-sensitive but identifiers cannot differ only by case" would be a reasonable compromise. "Martin" and "martin" are obviously not different names. Martin may be more correct, but allowing "martin" as a separate name is worse.
    - anticensor 8y ago
      > Capitalization of proper nouns is a core semantic feature of English. It is a core spelling rule of English. They could have gone the German way, with all nouns capitalised and compound words without spaces.
    - acdha 8y ago
      No, as you'd learn if you tried to find counter-examples for the cases I mentioned. Computer systems commonly treat terms which differ only in case as separate values but humans almost always try to do the opposite. People have preferences for proper usage but that's quite different from treating alternate case values as separate because people try to recognize the intention even if it's poorly expressed.
dghf 8y ago
> Case sensitivity is a mistake in every platform that embraces it. > I've used systems that are case sensitive and systems that are case insensitive, and the latter are responsible for an order of magnitude number of bugs more than the former. Do you have "latter" and "former" transposed in the second quote? If not, I'm confused.
- Pxtl 8y ago
  Oops, yes, corrected.
cryptonector 8y ago
Rare? Practically every programming language is case-sensitive. Unix filesystems are generally case-sensitive. You statements make no sense anyways. What is the antecedent of 'it' in "... any API or programming language that is based on it ..."? Since when are APIs / programming languages "semantically thought of as English"?!