Hi
I'm a newbie. I prefer named parameters. Objective C doesn't do named parameters per se but makes things quite clear by being able to call something like [initWithName:name andType:type] -- as you can see it's clear what is being passed and it's not always necessary to look up the docs. Named parameters offer much the same sort of value. I much prefer named parameters for readability. Frankly, being new to OACS, Tcl + AOLServer (which most new OACS users would likely be as we all know most of these are unfortunately not widely used today), named parameters make Tcl code MUCH easier to read and get at least an idea of what the code is likely meant to do.
Comparing code of a complex software system to Unix command line is just NOT useful. Unix command line is clearly meant to be fast and not used by novices and not to write software systems in. Come on, how many of us CVS and backup our Unix command line work??!!! Also Unix was written by and for programmers.
OACS does not have this luxury, it's being used by web developers that most of may never have taken a programming class. At lease we hope it's being used, more and more. It's a great platform, let's make it more useable by everybody and not just the diehard core team. Saving a few keystrokes should not be the concern here. PLEASE!
Not to rant but I've had some frustrating times coming up to speed on OACS and I'm a programmer with a BS degree from UCLA who wrote NeXTSTEP programs for about 15 years!!! It should be a lot easier than it is for us newbies:( I think the little things like documenting code and parameters and return values and errors thrown, etc.... ad nauseum really make a difference here.
thanks for listening:)
