Case sensitivity (was Conjugate is weird)

I think that there are a number of "features"
in Macsyma / Maxima which are SO hard to explain
that they should be removed simply to make the
problem of documenting them go away.  (These
features typically add little or no facilities
to the system, but are relics of old ideas, old
operating systems, old hardware restrictions.)

Another area which probably can be scrapped is
file name features, some of which are left over
from the ITS time sharing system.  Some of these
features were also put into Common Lisp, unfortunately.

RJF


Vadim V. Zhytnikov wrote:
> James Amundson writes:
> 
>  > -- In my opinion, we should
>  >     a) Make Maxima totally case sensitive.
>  >     b) Make the Maxima built-in functions lower case.
> 
> 
> I strongly support this plan.
> 
> First, I'm quite sure that case sensitivity is
> very convenient and important feature.
> I infer this from my personal practical
> experience with different CAS (say Reduce (case
> insensitive) vs Mathematica (case sensitive)).
> 
> Second, present Maxima case sensitivity scheme
> is very confusing and I feel that it will be
> a permanent source of misunderstanding for
> users.  I don't see any other way to
> resolve this problem but make Maxima
> strictly case sensitive.
>