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Simply: why is the nullptr keyword in the C++0X/C++11 standard lowercase, whereas its close companion NULL is uppercase? I do realise that the two adhere to different standards; nullptr is a keyword, whereas NULL is a macro. But since they will be used in similar situations, wouldn’t it be clearer for new users if they followed the same convention?
(Not that it’s that much of a bother to remember – I’m just curious about the design decision.)
Lower case definitely fits better with general naming conventions of C++. Using all caps wouldn’t do anything to help the new users at all.
And I don’t believe it would actually be all that helpful to the old users who grew up with using
NULLin C (or were in the cap of C++ users who usedNULLinstead of0).Certainly, I don’t see anything that would amount to a justification of breaking the naming convention in this case.