On Tue, Oct 17, 2017, 8:05 AM Giacomo Tesio <giac...@tesio.it> wrote:
> Really? Just aesthetics? :-o > > This would flips the question a bit: I wonder why the same designers chose > uppercase variable names while designing Unix... :-) > Programs can evolve, why not names? There was no expectation that sh scripts would work in rc. > > Giacomo > > 2017-10-17 16:39 GMT+02:00 Dan Cross <cro...@gmail.com>: > >> On Tue, Oct 17, 2017 at 10:38 AM, Giacomo Tesio <giac...@tesio.it> wrote: >> > Out of curiosity, do anybody know why Plan9 designers chose lowercase >> > variables over uppercase ones? >> > >> > At first, given the different conventions between rc and sh (eg $path >> is an >> > array, while $PATH is a string), I supposed Plan 9 designers wanted to >> > prevent conflict with unix tools relying to the older conventions. >> > >> > However, I'm not sure this was the main reason, as this also open to >> subtle >> > issues: if a unix shell modifies $IFS and then invoke an rc script, such >> > script will ignore the change and keep using the previous $ifs. >> > >> > >> > As far as I can see, APE does not attempt any translation between the >> two >> > conventions, so maybe I'm just missing something obvious... >> > >> > >> > Do anyone know what considerations led to such design decision? >> >> Aesthetics. >> >> >
