Re: [Axiom-developer] Re: Autoconf change

[Bill Page]

On 6/25/07, Gabriel Dos Reis wrote:
> ...
> On Mon, 25 Jun 2007, Tim Daly wrote:
> | ...
> | I have a pending downcase change which is complete and ready to
> | undergo testing. Since it is guaranteed to make your changeset
> | incompatible I'll withhold it until your changeset is ready to
> | apply. Then I'll refit the downcase change.
>
> Please don't hold your downcasing changes on the Autoconf machinery.
> As I explained two weeks ago (or so), I'm on travel and my main machine at
> this moment is a windows based system.  I'm not fully back to home
> untill August 2-3.  we will most certainly meet at ISSAC,
> July 29-August 1, and try to resolve other issues in a face-to-face
> meeting.

Although I understand the complications that case-reserving
case-insensitive file names can create on Windows and MAC OS/X and a
few other systems but I think that complete downcasing of of all file
names in the Axiom source code is unnecessary and significantly
degrades the readability of the code. Right now both the
build-improvements and wh-sandbox branches have solved this problem of
the collision of file names with only the minimum changes necessary to
support Windows and OS/X. In my view this is the proper approach. As
long as Axiom developers remain aware of the possibility of such
collision of names, then I think that the possibility of confusion is
remote and the maximum utilization of the capabilities of "sane" like
those of Unix and Linux remains.

So, please don't downcase all file names.

Regards,
Bill Page.