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From: Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Rationale for aligning data on even bytes in a Unix shell file?
Date: Fri, 9 May 2025 11:59:50 +0200
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On 09.05.2025 04:22, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Thu, 8 May 2025 01:57:05 -0500, BGB wrote:
> 
>> Either way, case-insensitivity at the FS level adds complexity.
> 
> If you look around some other groups, you will see discussion of a recent 
> rant from Linus Torvalds on this very issue. Basically, he doesn’t like 
> case-insensitivity. And he is justified in pointing out that it leads to 
> more opportunities for bugs in the kernel code.

(A similar comment exists, I think from Arnold Robbins, with Awk's
IGNORECASE feature.)

> The only reason we need to 
> have it is because it makes certain things easier for users.

Well, this may be true - and I suppose it is. But we should not give
the impression that it's a "pro" for some users and there's no "con"
[for all users] with such interfaces and system behaviors. Regularly
I'm cussing, for example, if I'm searching for phrases on interfaces
that neither support case-sensitivity nor regular expressions.

But the biggest problem is probably when interoperability comes into
play.

Janis