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From: jlg@lanl.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: Alternative Structures
Message-ID: <18218@lanl.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 17-Dec-84 21:10:06 EST
Article-I.D.: lanl.18218
Posted: Mon Dec 17 21:10:06 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 18-Dec-84 10:48:44 EST
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Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
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> Is there any reason that case can not be used to contain semantic
> information?

There is no reason other than general inconvenience.  It would make a
nice convention if properly used, but when TREE differs from TREe, which
differs from TReE, etc.  I can get pretty nasty.  I once had this argument
before, and I pointed out the the difference in case is not really distinct
from other differences between letters.  Suppose, for example, you had a
terminal capable of color I/O.  Should a red T be distinct from a blue one
which is different from a green one...?

The thing is, it's not really necessary for case to be distinguished, and
it can make code unreadable if it is adopted.