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Should "B" be the Same as "b"?
joshua42 asks: "Although having used Linux and FreeBSD for many years, I have yet to come
across anyone seriously questioning the traditional UNIX style file system name paradigm. With an Amiga background (It should be the same for people growing up with Windows, or those growing up with no computer at all (God forbid!).) it took me quite a while to get used to 'A' and 'a' being treated as different characters. This is of course fairly easy to accept and to understand if you have a technical background. I do however
have a hard time to see how aunt Ginny will ever be able to distinguish between her 'Letter.txt', 'LETTER.TXT' and 'letter.txt' files. In real life, upper and lower case letters represents almost identical information to most people. Has any thoughts been spent on this issue, now that our
favorite OS is becoming increasingly mainstream? Does it need to be
addressed? Have any attempts been done? What are the implications to parts outside the file systems?" This is an interesting point. As Unix grows more and more popular, the simple things we've taken for granted about the filesystem may stand in the way of general users adopting it. What ways can you think of that will mitigate this problem for new Linux users without actually affecting too much? Special shells for novice users, that can simplify much of the complexity may be the way to go, here.
The only reason why Unix is case sensitive is because it was easier, and faster to implement it as such in the early days.
It is not quite efficient to Preserve Case, and not make it case-sensitive.
I used a file system like this (HPFS) for many years and much prefer it over the case-sensitive alternatives.
It is also a security concern. If I have 2 files, which are identical except for case it is possible I could run the wrong one. Why? Point and Click interfaces barely show a difference between o and O, etc.
There is also no need for 2 files with the same name, and different case when it comes to SOURCE CODE. I have seen more than 1 program implemented like this and it is downright confusing and stupid. " No no, not "ubergeek.c", "Ubergeek.c"... etc.
Garbage. Crap. Total waste of resources.
I've been working in a database language that is case-insensitive for a number of years as well. It is damn nice to not have to worry about somebody typing something in differently than expected. It isn't a problem. And I don't have to call UPPER every time I do something!
case-sensitive is a pain in the ass.