Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!agate!apple!well!nagle From: nagle@well.UUCP (John Nagle) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++ Subject: Re: Named arguments? Message-ID: <13186@well.UUCP> Date: 17 Aug 89 16:13:50 GMT References: <612@windy.dsir.govt.nz> <2179@uw-entropy.ms.washington.edu> <30765@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> Reply-To: nagle@well.UUCP (John Nagle) Lines: 23 In article <30765@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> jac@muslix.UUCP (James Crotinger) writes: > ... or the approach >taken by REXX (and probably other languages) where you just use commas >to delimit the missing arguments: > > z = scatplot(x, y,, scale) > >Is there a good reason that one of these isn't used? When a large number of optional, positional arguments are allowed, the call can get a bit painful. z = plot(x,y,,,,,,1,,,'c'); is not something one finds desirable. This sort of thing is a curse of some mainframe job control languages. We don't want to bring it back. One major advantage of named, optional arguments, is that when it becomes necessary to add a new feature to a package, or to delete an unused one, all the callers of the package need not be revised. Whatever solution is chosen should definitely retain this property. John Nagle