I have this argument periodically with Eric Raymond. He swears up and down that it matters in languages other than English, especially when there are no single ways to translate upper to lower case or vice versa as in some languages. Personally, I think case sensitivity is a botch, because people just don't think they're different.
Once upon a time, I stated on Usenet that it seemed to me that Unix filenames were case sensitive because the folks who wrote Unix originally didn't want to expend the few instructions needed to make case comparisons insensitive. Dennis Ritchie corrected me, and said that no, they thought being case sensitive was the Right Thing. On Thu, Oct 23, 2025 at 2:55 PM Phil Smith III <[email protected]> wrote: > No no, I meant GLOBALLY: no filenames on the planet should ever have been > case-sensitive! Nobody sane would ever name two files "Foo" and "FOO", so > it's just stupid. I keep asking *ix folks about this--have for 40 > years--and all insist "It's good" without ever being able to justify it. > > -----Original Message----- > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf > Of Mike Schwab > Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2025 3:48 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: IRXJCL oddity > > Mixed case use has been used, so must account for reads and deletes. > > On Thu, Oct 23, 2025 at 2:45 PM Paul Gilmartin < > [email protected]> wrote: > > > On Thu, 23 Oct 2025 14:00:51 -0400, Phil Smith III <[email protected]> > > wrote: > > > > >If true, I'm gonna assume this is some C thing related to a null > > [terminated] string. Agreed seems beyond stupid! > > > > > I know your prejudice, but don't misattribute things such as this to > > it. > > > > >Which is on my time machine list: go back and stop them from ever > > >using > > that horrible convention (along with EBCDIC/ASCII and *ix case > > sensitivity). > > > > > Such an accommodation should be made at the lowest level so all > > facilities may most simply exploit it. > > > > Please submit an Idea that STOW, BLDL, and Catalog Services be made > > case insensitive, > > > > But remember: <https://www.hyrumslaw.com/> > > > > -- > > gil > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send > > email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > > > > > -- > Mike A Schwab, Springfield IL USA > Where do Forest Rangers go to get away from it all? > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email > to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > -- Jay Maynard ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
