Well, if we're not going to try to implement linguistically based hyphenation/underscoriation rules (and I'd still argue that hyphenating adjectives to nouns and underscoring everything else isn't exactly rocket science), then I'd suggest we reconsider a radically different proposal that was made on this list five years ago:
http://www.mail-archive.com/perl6-language@perl.org/msg22675.html The relevant suggestion regarding hyphens vs underscores is: "...to allow both characters, but have them mean the same thing." That is, any isolated internal underscore can be replaced with an isolated internal hyphen (and vice versa), without changing the meaning of the identifier. This would be the death of fine distinctions such as between: activate_main-sequence_detonator(); and: activate_main_sequence-detonator(); which would now resolve to the same subroutine...and do so even if that subroutine had been declared as sub activate-main-sequence-detonator {...} But perhaps such distinctions are indeed too fine and subtle, and we would be better off eliminating the possibility of them entirely. Hyphen/underscore equivalence would allow those (apparently elite few) who can correctly use a hyphen to correctly use the hyphen, whilst the shambling masses can just randomly type underscores or hyphens between each word, as their atavistic whims dictate. ;-) Damian