Message-Id: <9305192026.AA00935@mocha.bunyip.com>
Date: Wed, 19 May 93 00:23:16 EDT
From: Richard W Wiggins <WIGGINS@msu.edu>
Subject: Re: Comments on URN ID
To: John C Klensin <KLENSIN@INFOODS.MIT.EDU>
In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 18 May 1993 19:22:26 -0400 (EDT)
>>I don't have a really good feel for how many older systems are out there....
>>should the case-insensitive thing be dropped?
>
>... If you can't
>keep URNs away from people, then the reality is that people will read
>them out loud, write them down on the backs of envelopes, and carry out
>a number of other short-term-memory-intensive applications. And there
>is lots and lots of human factors experience that says that people who
>aren't extremely sensitive to the peculiarities of computer systems will
>regularly get case-funny spellings wrong.
Very well said. Here's a strong vote for case to be ignored. Case
sensitivity adds little for the sake of machines, and it can
significantly complicate and confuse things for humans. (I may use a
Next but it pains me to type NeXT in text or in file transfers.)
/Rich Wiggins, Gopher Coordinator, Michigan State U