> No, I just don't see what users have to do with it.  Most of them
> still don't speak English anyway.

Good luck learning Scheme or most other programming languages then.
>
> Right.  And when they learn how to be programmers, there's a bunch of
> much harder stuff that they need to learn in addition.

Sure, and the more you pile on, the higher the hurdle.  Are you  
advocating
for making things more difficult intentionally?

>> Some of us believe that in this day and age, being ignorant of
>> programming, at least at some level, is akin to being ignorant of
>> mathematics (again at some level) or science.
>
> Did I say in any way that I'm against making the masses know how to
> program?  It's *you* who holds the opinion that a case-insensitive
> language is somehow easier to learn.

Yes, because it is most like the largely case-insensitive natural  
language
from which it grew, and which most people in the world are learning
as well.

>> Thus making changes to a primarily teaching language that are
>> extraneous to novice users (as opposed to experts from other
>> programming languages) seem misguided at least.
>
> If we're already down to anecdotes, I can provide two:
>
> * As a kid if a non-English-speaking country, I have seen several
>   examples of students that were confused by case-insensitivity.

Were they learning English as well?

>
> * When the HtDP authors wrote a series of languages aimed at teaching
>   students, they intentionally made these languages case-sensitive.
>   (This was well before their host language changed its default mode
>   to being sensitive.)

Sure.  People can be confused.


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