From: Karl von Laudermann <doodpants@...>
Date: 2005-10-29T03:57:04+09:00
Subject: Re: "Readability" inflation

Trans wrote:
> Does
>
>     def foo(a:, b:, c:)
>
> look any better? Not to me. To me it looks worse b/c of what :a and
> a::b are.

I admit I haven't read all of the posts in the named parameter threads,
so I apologize if my question is answered there, but why does there
even need to be a new syntax for declaring methods with named
parameters at all? My first thought as to  what "adding named
parameters to Ruby" means is that *any* method can be called using
named parameters or not. I.e., given a method:

def foo(a, b)
    a + b
end

It can be called in any of these ways:

foo(5, 3)
foo(a=5, b=3)
foo(b=3, a=5)

Why can't this be made to work?