From: "ara.t.howard" <ara.t.howard@...>
Date: 2008-07-19T06:28:16+09:00
Subject: Re: NamedParameters v0.0.0 ('first', :second => 'release')


On Jul 18, 2008, at 3:13 PM, Roger Pack wrote:

>
> Possibly. Kind of hard to tell from interview transcript notes :)
> My hope is that it'll be more than just ending hash based, but will
> support naming the variable names themselves.
>
> def foo(a, b)
> end
>
> foo 3, b: 4

IDL does this and it's a pain for most situations, for instance

def foo a, b
   bar( ... )
end

def bar b, a
end

foo a : 4, b : 2

now foo has to have a method to return the named vars to bar, kinda  
like *argv, but much more sophisticated, drastically reducing the  
ability the sling around arrays and hashes in methods, especially for  
method forwarding.  then there is the issue of required vs optional  
parameters...  and code like this

   def foo options = {}
     add_defaults_to options
     bar options
   end

etc

basically i've personally found languages with real named parameters  
leaving me wishing they were simply hash based.  my 2 cts.

a @ http://codeforpeople.com/
--
we can deny everything, except that we have the possibility of being  
better. simply reflect on that.
h.h. the 14th dalai lama