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Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 09:38:46 +0200
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 <FDD5D99066749040AF9098A720E98977014519C9@CIWMEXZSA0E.ex.ordersx.org>
Thread-Topic: [users@httpd] make URL's case insensitive
thread-index: AcXWVGbVkULBhcVrSuy4HaSbJCWWdACFiYFg
From: "Boyle Owen" <Owen.Boyle@swx.com>
To: <users@httpd.apache.org>
Subject: RE: [users@httpd] make URL's case insensitive - (opinion - OT)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nick Kew [mailto:nick@webthing.com]
>=20
> It is HTTP, the protocol of the Web, that is case-sensitive.
> Anything that tries to pretend it's not is broken.

Exactly.

The whole concept of "case-sensitivity" is wrong-headed to begin with. =
The case of a letter is an essential part of its semantics and cannot be =
dispensed with without losing information.=20

To give an example, the other night, I was in a restaurant and one of =
the items on the menu was "Filets de perche d'Orange". In a =
case-insensitive world, you might expect your fish to come with orange =
sauce. But there was important information in the capital "O" in =
"Orange"... As it turns out the restaurant was called the "Hotel =
D'Orange" and so the menu was telling us that the dish was done in the =
special style of that hotel (garlic butter, actually). So the case of a =
single letter changed completely the semantics of the phrase and the =
taste of the fish.

Filenames and URLs are meant for human consumption and so reflect the =
underlying semantics of human language (otherwise we'd just use inodes =
and IP addresses). So if case is important in our written language it =
must be important on a computer too.

Rgds,
Owen Boyle
Disclaimer: Any disclaimer attached to this message may be ignored.=20

>=20
> --=20
> Nick Kew
>=20
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>=20
>=20
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