=> -----Original Message----- => From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] => [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Charlie Coleman => Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2006 17:35 => To: ProFox Email List => Subject: RE: DBF() and GETFILE() no respecters of case => => At 09:45 AM 10/18/2006 -0400, Hal Kaplan wrote: => ... => => >The only reason that case-sensitivity is an issue is => because the first => >computers had limited storage. Full-font alphabets were a => luxury, as => >were unambiguous dates. Now that we have the bandwidth to => indulge in => >mirroring actual human written communication, we should => take advantage of it. No? => => No (more on that below). For mainframes, I believe you are => right in assuming that storage was a premium. But I believe => even back then they had a 128 character alphabet. So => upper/lower text was available. I just think on mainframes, => they took the extra effort to 'ignore' case in the file => system. When Unix came along, I think they were 'lazy' and => did not make the file system (or code compilers) case-insensitive. => => => >No? Well then please be consistent. Do not use upper AND => lower case in => >your writing and your posts here. Start a trend! => ... => => There are extremely important differences in the two => environments. Humans read with more efficiency when proper => capitalization is used. Computers do not read like humans. => And, in concept, the purpose of computers is to try and => remove mundane things so humans don't have to deal with it. => => Another way to look at it is capitalization can change => meaning in a human-readable document (especially in legal => documents). In terms of computer systems, trying to mimic => that same behavior is counter-intuitive. => In other words, why would you want a file named TestJunk.txt => to be different than TESTJUNK.txt? Why would you want a => variable "notgood" to be different than "NOTGOOD"? The => compiler should equate 'NOTGOOD' and 'notgood' as the same => variable. Note that I said compiler not IDE. Again, => developers are human (most of 'em) so they read text more => efficiently with mixed case (assuming it's used somewhat logically). => => Maybe we're not talking from the same point of view. I say => the 'file system' should allow the case of the filename to => be preserved when created. => Just like source code should preserve the case in which it => was created. => However, for any file-system function, case should be => ignored (so that <open-file> "testdoc.txt" would be able to => open "TestDoc.TxT"). And compilers should be able perform => it's functions and match variables in the symbol table => regardless of the case in which they were referenced. Doing => things this way would save countless hours of tracing/fixing => problems. Note I am not talking about "pure data". Data is => data - it shouldn't be touched by the OS/compiler. And => that's why the various DBs have functions to allow => developers to code in case-ignoring data handing (or vice versa). => => Computers do not act like humans and vice versa. Each should => try to 'optimize' what it does best. Ignoring case in file => systems functions and compilers is one thing the computer => should handle for us. => => -Charlie =>
Charlie, I was there and IBM's EBCDIC character set came around in 1964 but the keypunch machines and the terminals did not support 256 characters, so everything remained upper-case for quite some time. Lower-case printing did not really become popular until about 1970. When Unix came along, all I can remember is wondering why anyone would want to name a system after castrated males. But I don't think it had anything to do with laziness. I think it had to do with AT&T wanting to distinguish itself from IBM because OS360 did not use mixed-case. I read what you wrote a couple of times and frankly got confused. First you say that humans can easily handle mixed-case and then you say they shouldn't have to. Computers are computers and humans are humans, etc., etc. Well, this human happens to like case-sensitive stuff. Filenames, variable names, you name it. Yes, it requires a certain amount of discipline and attention to detail and occasionally could be troublesome. But it's worth it. If a techie cannot keep track of spelling, using mixed-case, maybe he should not be programming. IMHO, and with the utmost of respect, your position is a cop-out. This can go on forever, but fortunately for anyone reading this, I cannot. You cannot convince me and at this stage of my life, I really don't care whether I convince you or not. We got sidetracked. The original issue was maintaining the original filename entry. I think it should be maintained and I have always wondered why it isn't, but only for a few seconds every couple of years. Peace and friendship! HALinNY _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
