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Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers Unix History Question: Why are filenames/dirnames case sentsitive in Unix? Post 66435 by deckard on Monday 14th of March 2005 11:46:20 AM
Old 03-14-2005
Unix History Question: Why are filenames/dirnames case sentsitive in Unix?

I tried looking for the answer online and came up with only a few semi-answers as to why file and directory names are case sensitive in Unix. Right off the bat, I'll say this doesn't bother me. But I run into tons of Windows and OpenVMS admins in my day job who go batty when they have to deal with case sensitivity and I hate not really having a good answer for them. The best answer I can give them is that it allows for more filenames in the namespace, but they usually just grunt and reply, "yeah, but who cares". Knowing that Unix seems to have been refined into a really well thought out OS over the decades, I'm sure there must be a reason why case sensitivity was kept (other than legacy compatibility) instead of moving to a case insensitive naming convention. Any gurus out there have any good answers I can give them besides, "You'll get nothing and like it too!!" ;P
 

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ARITHMETIC(6)							   Games Manual 						     ARITHMETIC(6)

NAME
arithmetic - provide drill in number facts SYNOPSIS
/usr/games/arithmetic [ +-x/ ] [ range ] DESCRIPTION
Arithmetic types out simple arithmetic problems, and waits for an answer to be typed in. If the answer is correct, it types back "Right!", and a new problem. If the answer is wrong, it replies "What?", and waits for another answer. After every twenty problems, it publishes statistics on correctness and the time required to answer. To quit the program, type an interrupt (delete). The first optional argument determines the kind of problem to be generated; +-x/ respectively cause addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems to be generated. One or more characters can be given; if more than one is given, the different types of problems will be mixed in random order; default is +-. Range is a decimal number; all addends, subtrahends, differences, multiplicands, divisors, and quotients will be less than or equal to the value of range. Default range is 10. At the start, all numbers less than or equal to range are equally likely to appear. If the respondent makes a mistake, the numbers in the problem which was missed become more likely to reappear. As a matter of educational philosophy, the program will not give correct answers, since the learner should, in principle, be able to calcu- late them. Thus the program is intended to provide drill for someone just past the first learning stage, not to teach number facts de novo. For almost all users, the relevant statistic should be time per problem, not percent correct. 7th Edition May 6, 1986 ARITHMETIC(6)
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