>>>>>>>Re: "However, having tried out the full LAMP stack..." -- now, if they could only do away with case-sensitivity. A real bane!
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Nah - you just have to change gears. Lots of languages, like C#, are case-sensitive, even on Windows.
>>>>>
>>>>>Oh, yeah, I know. But case-sensitivity is perhaps the most stupid thing ever put into a programming language.
>>>>
>>>>I view case-insensitivity like training wheels. When you're in that sort of environment too long, though, it tends to affect all your thinking - you start to think that ( "russell" = "Russell" ) is .T., for example.
>>>>
>>>>Over the years I've seen maybe half-a-dozen cases, in other peoples' code, where the programmer carelessly used different cases when referring to the same variable or other symbol name in a case-insensitive language. The code was always sloppy, so now it's a real "Danger, Will Robinson!" signal to me.
>>>>
>>>>In the final analysis, I prefer to use autocomplete/IntelliSense-like features of the IDE, or just copy/paste of variable and symbol names rather than typing them every time (error-prone), so case sensitivity doesn't really matter to me. If you code like your language is case-sensitive, even if it isn't, you never get burned.
>>>
>>>The point is that it has nothing in the "pro" list and lots in the "con" list. There is really no good reason for case-sensitivity. You're constantly doing something or using some tool in order to get it right. And not every case sensitive language has those tools. Take JavaScript for example. It trips you up. You're writing some complex code and get fooled by an error that actually turns out to be a case issue when you're looking past that to something more complex. Then you realize its a stupid case issue. We have enough troubles in this industry with the relentless change, integration of complex technologies, etc., etc. etc. We don't need to trip ourselves up with stupid issues like case-sensitivity.
>>
>>Case-sensitivity promotes rigour and attention to detail, which are thematic in programming.
>
>I always thought it had more to do with mathematics and unicode support....

I don't know about math, but languages that don't have case, yes, I can see that.

From a practical/real-world POV my understanding is it's easier to write a compiler, and the compiler performs better (whether JIT or conventional) if it's case-sensitive.