Re: [idn] Alpha Online

[Dan Oscarsson <Dan.Oscarsson@trab.se>]

Dan Bernstein wrote:
>

>Case insensitivity is quite a bit of added work for implementors, and it
>dramatically expands the number of opportunities for visual confusion,
>as well as the severity of the confusion. The only counterargument is
>the unjustified speculation that users are too stupid to handle a world
>of case-sensitive names---even though URLs are already case-sensitive,
>specifically in path names.

I have had case insensitivity in my software from the beginning. It is
not
hard work. Very easy.
My web server is case insensitive in the URL path names. Much easier for
the user that way. The URLs can use mixed case to make the easier
to read, but the user can enter them in any way.

Case sensitivity does increase confusion for the user. When you speak
the case of letters are not heard so the user do not know what to type.
Many use mixed case to enhance readability, but when search for a match,
case should be ignored. An example on the case sensitive confusion:
in Unix the file names are case sensitive, and you can have a Makefile
and a makefile. And both two will be searched by make which selects
one before the other. Depending on how you sort your filenames, you
might not even see that you have two makefiles and therefore not
understand why things do not work because the wrong one is used
by make.

   Dan