Tom, "clock format" with it's "-format $format_string" syntax, stuck
on the end where you say optional positional params would go, does not
fit into your above model at all. Tcl is ad-hoc and arbitrary on
this. Even in the Tcl core, the various commands and procedures
follow no firm style guidelines when it comes to order or style of
arguments to functions - which seems ok to me.
db_multirow, ah, good point, I'd forgotten you could define
complicated syntax like that with ad_proc. (Never had any reason to
use it myself.) Ok, so then IMO, when it comes to the style of
passing arguments to procedures, OpenACS and Tcl are both
ad-hoc.
Of course, this all fits with (and stems from) the basic free-form
nature of the
Tcl syntax
That, roughly, the first argument on a line is always a command, and
it's up to that command to do whatever the heck it wants with all the
rest of the arguments, imposing any special syntax it may care to,
etc.