This site is a static rendering of the Trac instance that was used by R7RS-WG1 for its work on R7RS-small (PDF), which was ratified in 2013. For more information, see Home. For a version of this page that may be more recent, see CaseSensitivity in WG2's repo for R7RS-large.

Case­Sensitivity

alexshinn
2010-03-14 18:40:22
7history
source

Historically one of the most heated flame-wars in the Scheme community. We have to decide whether we want to preserve backwards compatibility with standards up through the R5RS, or reaffirm the switch to case-sensitivity in the R6RS. The charter gives precedence to the former, so unless we can reach a rough consensus (> 90%) to the contrary, the default should remain case-insensitive.

Whatever we choose we should realize that some implementations are likely to use a different default in their preferred environments.

Note that the default case-sensitivity is orthogonal to the issue of whether and how behavior can be toggled on a per-file or per-expression basis. If there is a toggle, it may be specified by WG1 for both groups, or only by WG2.

Below are some common arguments for each side. The number of arguments on each side is irrelevant - people should weigh each argument according to its importance.

Pro-folding:

Pro-preserving:

Proposals: