Why is null lowercase?

[Mike Parker]

On Thursday, 24 January 2013 at 12:56:03 UTC, Matthew Caron wrote:
> This is probably a question for Walter, but maybe others know.
>
> Of all of the differences between C and D, the one which I have 
> the most difficulty adapting to is null being lowercase. Does 
> anyone know why this decision was made?

In the world of C and C++, 'NULL' is a macro. Macros, by 
convention, are all uppercase. Contrast that with C++11 which 
provides for 'nullptr', a type rather than a macro. Consider 
Java, which also has a lowercase null. In D, null follows the 
same convention as other built-ins, so it is lowercase. To me, it 
makes perfect sense. There are no macros in D, so I wouldn't have 
expected to see NULL to begin with. *That* would have been highly 
inconsistent.