Arthur A.Gleckler wrote:
> In <3.2. Lexical syntax>: Scheme should not be case sensitive. After
> thirty years, what new argument came up to justify this change?
One is compatibility with XML: anyone who want to use Scheme symbols
to represent XML element and attribute names will want case-sensitive
names. (Of course mapping namespace-aware XML to Scheme symbols is
trickier. One solution is to support some version of two-level names,
as Common Lisp does. Kawa does a variant of this.)
Another reason is is to bind to named "things" in case-sensitive
languages. I.e. a "foreign function interface". For example I
might want to call a method in Java, C#, or C++, all of which
are case-sensitive.
> Does this mean that (eq? 'symbol 'SYMBOL) ==> #f ?
Yes - that is the whole point.
> This means that years of tradition of writing quoted symbols in upper case
> in macros for clarity will end
I never heard of this tradition. Seems like a confusing convention.
I for one strongly support case sensitive symbols.
--
--Per Bothner
per_at_bothner.com http://per.bothner.com/
Received on Tue Nov 14 2006 - 13:23:41 UTC