Matthew Walton wrote:
On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 1:22 PM, Shawn H Corey <shawnhco...@gmail.com> wrote:
So, I'll ask again: Where in the official documentation does it state that
Perl 6 names are case sensitive?
I think it's more important to ask where it says that they aren't.
1) Perl 5 is case sensitive, and the original Apocalypses ran on the
basis of 'if it's not mentioned it's the same as Perl 5'
2) The spec assigns no meaning to identifier characters, it just
allows you to use a certain set of them. They mean nothing to the
language, therefore it has no concept of case to be insensitive about
3) Most popular programming languages are also case-sensitive
Maybe it should be explicitly mentioned somewhere, but I think it's a
reasonable default assumption. Programmers know that
case-insensitivity is a special form of string comparison which
involves lots of extra work, so tend to assume (at least in my
experience) that it's not going to happen unless they actually ask for
it.
You're looking at it from the point of view of experienced programmers.
What if the person is a high-school student learning Perl 6 as their
first programming language? (And yes, I take the point of view that any
computer language that a high-school student can not learn is useless.)
It's fine to assume that anyone who reads the Apocalypses is a very
experienced programmer but when it comes to the official documentation,
such things should be explicitly stated. By now, the documentation
should be reaching its final stages. Yes, it's a finicky little detail
but programming is all about getting the finicky little details right.
--
Just my 0.00000002 million dollars worth,
Shawn
Programming is as much about organization and communication
as it is about coding.
I like Perl; it's the only language where you can bless your
thingy.
Eliminate software piracy: use only FLOSS.
