* When choosing case insensitivity designers must carefully * consider what its scope should be. *
This is a key point. File names are often mentioned in text (books, email, newsgroups, etc). Sometimes the file name is copied (maybe cut & paste) from code examples, and sometimes it is simply typed by the author. Should text processors "recognize" that the text is a file name and automatically convert it to upper case? Or convert it to lower case to look better in the middle of a paragraph? There is another part to text cases: terminal keyboards, and not all of these are "standard" English. And, of course, some languages are "right-to-left" instead of the "left-to-right" that most of us are accustomed to use. Should text processors somehow recognize when a file name is being discussed and provide special handling? Sometimes a particular case is important for recognition (DeLorenko vs DELORENKO or delorenko could make a customer unhappy!) As mentioned already, automatic case changes are not clearly defined in some languages. "Text processor" can mean anything from ISPF edit to an expensive "professional" author's tool. (I use both; many of us use a wide range of these tools.) While it was less true in "7 bit ASCII days" we should remember that the computer world is a world-wide concept today. I can grasp how "upper case" happened in keypunch days (no lower case) and "7 bit" days but, IMHO, it is unfortunate that z/OS has stuck with some upper case restrictions. (Of course, changing this now might cause nightmares in some production operations!) Bill Ogden ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
