[antlr-interest] "Honey Badger" case insensitivity

[Sam Barnett-Cormack]

Actually, this is a good point... if someone is designing a DSL, is it 
really helpful for potential users of the DSL if were' encouraging them 
to make it case-sensitive. If the DSL is going to be human-edited by 
non-nerds, that may be a good design reason to make keywords case 
insensitive.

Still, I have no disagreement with leaving it until after the initial 
release. Put it on a .1 roadmap or something.

Sam

PS: Just to avoid any confusion, the Sam mentioned in the email below is 
me, and not the Sam who is mentioned on this list more often (Harwell). 
He helps write ANTLR and ST - I just lurk and pipe in occasionally.

On 01/01/2012 13:08, Graham Wideman wrote:
>> From the 'v4 "Honey Badger" teaser' thread...
>
> In response to suggestions for more compact case-insensitivity syntax
>
> Ter said:
>> Hi Graham and crew.Fortunately case insensitive
>> keywords are less common these days.
>
> And Sam said:
>> However, I will agree it's not that common these days.
>
> I'm gonna rate this "[citation needed]" !
>
> To assert "less common", you guys perhaps have some stats that show a dwindling square mileage of text in  HTML, SQL, PHP, Basic (including VBA), Delphi, Fortran, COBOL, spreadsheet formulas and others that are candidates for ANTLR-generated digesters?
>
> Or info on trends in simple ASLs intended for non-programmer end-users, who generally regard strict case requirements as gratuitously frustrating?
>
> Probably true that the steady parade of hip new programming languages leans heavily towards case-sensitive keywords and identifiers.  But I'm not convinced that represents the overall distribution of ANTLR opportunities.
>
> By the way, nice one, Sam, suggesting Honey Badger could use more sugar :-)
>
> Happy New Year all!
>
> -- Graham
>
>
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