On Wednesday, December 28, 2011 21:44:01 Timon Gehr wrote: > > I also don't think that they add much unless you have functions with way > > too many parameters, and those sorts of functions shouldn't be > > happening anyway. And I don't like the additional complication of the > > possibility of reordering functiion arguments. You should be able to > > look at a function and know which parameters its arguments go with > > purely by the order, which named arguments destroy. > Why would that be beneficial?
I'd hate to have a function like void func(float x, float y); where calling it func(1.0, 2.0); and func(y : 1.0, x : 2.0); don't do the same thing. All of a sudden, I have to pay attention to what names the arguments were given. I can't just read the function call like I would now. It becomes error-prone in that regard and violates the current expectations of argument order. It will make code harder to read for minimal benefit IMHO. I do _not_ think that name arguments are an improvement. > > But all of that has been discussed at length before. I'm completely > > opposed to the idea, but I seem to be in the minority (at least out of > > those who spoke up). > > > > - Jonathan M Davis > > I don't need named arguments either, but I don't think they would hurt > if implemented as a purely optional feature. Since they affect the API, they _do_ hurt. Since then any changes to parameter names break code. So, it has a definite affect on code maintainibility even if I don't use the feature myself. I also don't want to see them in code. If the example above were possible, then someone would use it in their code (even if I didn't), and I'd have to deal with all of the code readibility issues that it causes. Named arguments _would_ hurt the language even if they were purely optional. - Jonathan M Davis
