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results of a case poll



 Here are the result of a poll I took of Franz Lisp users about their use of
case sensitivity:

		 Results of the case sensitivity poll.
As the letters came in, I assigned each of them a number.  Below I've listed
the results by number so that you can see how the answers correlated.
Some people only answered a few of the questions (some none at all).
The text of all the letters is at mit-mc in the file "ucb;cases text"
(and for Berkeley people it is in kim:~jkf/surv)

 1) Do you use the fact that Franz Lisp is case sensitive, that is do you
    use variables with capital letters?

    yes: 3,4,5,6,7,11,14,16,17,18,19,21,23,24,25,26,27,28,30,31,33,35,36,38
         40,41,42,43,45,47,48

    no: 8,9,10,12,13,34,37,46

    summary: yes: 31/39 = 79%  no: 8/39 = 21%
    
    If yes, do you ever have two different variables whose names differ only
    by capitalization?

     yes: 4,6,11,16,17,18,21,23,24,27,28,42,43,45,46,48
     no: 7,14,19,25,26,30,31,33,35,36,38,40

    summary: yes: 16/28 = 57%   no: 12/28 = 43%
    
    [When I refer to 'variable' I mean a symbol to which you assign a
    value ( to distinguish it from something used just for
    printing, as in (print 'Results). ]
    
 2) If a case-insensitive Common Lisp was the only lisp available on your
    machine would you:

    a) use it without complaint about the case-insensitivity

    b) ask the person in charge of Common Lisp at your site to add a switch
       to disable the code that maps all characters to the same case, thus
       making it possible for each user to make Common Lisp case-sensitive.
 
    a: 3,8,9,11,12,13,16,25,26,30,34,46
    b: 1,4,6,7,10,14,18,19,21,24,27,31,33,35,36,37,38,40,41,42,43,45,47,48

    summary: a: 12/36 = 33%     b: 24/36 = 67%
    
 3) Do you prefer an operating system to be case-sensitive (like Unix and
    Multics) or case-insensitive (like Tops-10, Tops-20, Tenex, etc etc).
 
    sensitive: 1,4,5,6,7,10,11,14,18,19,21,24,26,30,31,33,35,36,40,
	       42,43,45,47,48
    insensitive:  3,8,9,12,25,34,46

    summary: sensitive: 24/31 = 77%    insensitive: 7/31 = 23%