Re: Default arguments

[Sean O'Rourke]

My bad.

/s

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Please reply on the list so the discussion is kept archived and public
for others to comment.

Thanks,

jwe

On 15-Dec-2006, Sean O'Rourke wrote:

| "John W. Eaton" <address@hidden> writes:
| > One problem I have with keyword arguments is that if they are
| > allowed for any function argument, then you have to carefully
| > choose the names of all function parameters, and once you've
| > selected them, you can't change them without the potential for
| > breaking a lot of code.
| 
| This is a significant constraint on library code (octave and
| octave-forge), but within your own code it seems manageable, and
| these kinds of interface decisions should be finalized before
| code is widely distributed.  I haven't had much trouble either
| with Lisp or with the current "'key', value" approach in Octave.
| 
| > There would also be problems with the way variable arguments
| > are overloaded in some Matlab functions.
| 
| I would propose that only arguments with default values can be
| passed using keywords, since non-optional keyword arguments are
| just strange.  That way there's no impact on existing functions.
| 
| /s