Mark, If you spend more time with Julia, I think you'll find that case sensitivity actually *helps* in learning the language. Most notably, Julia follows the convention of using proper-cased identifiers for modules and types, while using all lower-case for function/method identifiers. This aids drastically in code readability and, IMO, *helps *someone feel more comfortable with the language more quickly. While obviously case-sensitivity can be abused, so far, I've found it to be a pattern the community seems unified on and happy to conform with; to the satisfaction of everyone! Great care has also been taken in method naming to make names clear, concise, and tab-completion friendly.
I hope you'll reconsider the importance of case sensitivity and trust that after learning 2-3 naming rules, students can quickly and more efficiently get comfortable with Julia. -Jacob On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 12:10 PM, aikimark1955 <[email protected]>wrote: > @Kevin > > I apologize for the delayed response. I didn't know that anyone had > replied until last night. (thanks, Jacques) > > When teaching a language, it is easier to teach a language that is case > insensitive. It lets students concentrate on the language programming > structures, data structures, keywords, and other features. The students > can get to correct executions quicker. > > Scripting languages are not generally case sensitive. There are even > compiled languages (Pascal/Delphi, VB, Fortran, etc.) that are not case > sensitive. > > I realize that I'm coming into Julia after much work has been done on the > compiler and that teaching is a low-priority metric. There might even be a > work-around in the Julia Studio (or other) editor, where all declared > variable instances in the code are replaced with the case of the definition. > > Mark > > > On Monday, February 17, 2014 11:23:41 AM UTC-5, Kevin Squire wrote: > >> Pretty disruptive. >> >> I'm curious why you would want such a feature? Are there other languages >> which have this? How would it make your job easier? >> >> I'm pretty sure this won't ever happen. To me this sounds like a rather >> bad idea, but I'm curious about your reasoning. >> >> Cheers! >> Kevin >> >> On Monday, February 17, 2014, aikimark1955 <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> As a software instructor, I would like an option to have the language >>> parse in a case-insensitive manner. >>> >>> How disruptive would such a change be? >>> >>> Mark Hutchinson >>> Durham, NC >>> >>
