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Re: Case-sensitivity.


Jim Blandy writes:
 > 
 > Hmm.  After bothering to find a copy of R4RS on the web, I see that
 > even R4RS wants identifiers to be case-insensitive.  Guile is supposed
 > to implement R4RS by default... :(

Why, this was not known when guile got implemented first? Which was the 
latest Scheme standard that did not require insensitivity?

 > 
 > So maybe that default should change.
 > 

Who was responsible for the status quo w.r.t case sensitivity? 
Stallman or Lord?

 > How does the list feel about this?  Would making Guile default to
 > case-insensitivity cause people problems that are going to be a pain
 > to work around?
 > 

I do not write case-sensitive identifiers on purpose, even when porting
C or elisp code manually to Guile modules. Tinkering whether nil translates
to #f or '() is much harder.

Some problems I see when automated wrappers are used to produce guile modules
from C header files. This would concern Dav Beazley's SWIG and part of Chris
Lee's g-wrap (the experimental header->module generator). Maybe those tools 
should get option switches or fire a warning when encountering capitals.

case insensitivity would be a great advantage for using some slib modules and
stuff like jacal which is insensitive. 
--
Klaus Schilling