Do you expect query string parameter names to be case sensitive?

Question

Silverlight is case sensitive for query string parameters so the following code would return false with "callid=5"

string callId;
if (System.Windows.Browser.HtmlPage.Document.QueryString.TryGetValue("callId", out callId))
{
....
}

Microsoft defends the decision by citing the www.w3.org spec, but I think it leads to a less friendly experience for people trying to link to you, or give a URL over the phone.

Looks like Stackoverflow is case insensitive: http://stackoverflow.com/search?q=silverlight+bug http://stackoverflow.com/search?Q=silverlight+bug

Answer 1

Yes, I'm used to it being case sensitive, and therefore have been programming to it for a long time. I know of some people that have implemented methods to do intermediate parsing to convert them all to lowercase, or other things server side, and it really depends on what you are working with specifically.

As for usability, yes it is harder to read. BUT, at the same time a URL over the phone that has a querystring is not easy to give out anyway.

Answer 2

I think you should focus on your naming conventions rather than the implementations of standards, making sure to avoid similar field names and mixed case. For example, you can use a convention of words that over the phone can be read out stating "all lowercase" or "all uppercase".