case-sensitivity: an immodest proposal

[David A. Moon <Moon at SCRC-POINTER at MIT-MC>]

I guess I need to amplify on my previous message, even at the risk of
discussing this to death, since my previous brief flame left too much
to the imagination.

The case behavior in the current Common Lisp manual forces case-insensitivity
on everyone, whether they like it or not.  There is a possibility of a standard
mode that you can turn on to get case-sensitivity, with the details not
fully specified.  However, this is a fraud, because you aren't allowed to
use it in portable programs.

Masinter's "modest" proposal instead forces case-sensitivity on everyone,
whether they like it or not.  There is the possibility of using two cases,
however this is a fraud, because you are only allowed to use one case in
portable programs.

So what we end up with is a choice between being allowed to use either case,
but not having the cases distinguished, or only being allowed to use one
case (lower), in portable programs.  It seems to me that all the modest
proposal accomplishes (for portable programs) is not allowing them to
be written in upper case, hardly an improvement.