Hi, 2017-10-17 16:38 GMT+02:00, Giacomo Tesio <giac...@tesio.it>: > 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? > > > Giacomo >
Probably a matter of taste and different user behaviours, plan9 developers weren't just the same developers from unix.
