[erlang-questions] Re: erlang improvement - objective c (or smalltalk) syntax

[Steve Davis]

I'm saying that you still have to look at the module signature to find 
the argument order.

Tony Arcieri wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 1:18 PM, Steve Davis 
> <steven.charles.davis@REDACTED <mailto:steven.charles.davis@REDACTED>> 
> wrote:
> 
>     Joe,
> 
>     Nice idea, but...
> 
>     On Jun 4, 4:10 am, Joe Armstrong <erl...@REDACTED
>     <mailto:erl...@REDACTED>> wrote:
>      >             + forces use of meaningful tag names in arguments
>      >             + don't have to remember argument order
>      >             + variable names in the body of a function become shorter
> 
>     I don't believe 1 or 2, and in large functions 3 may still be a
>     liability.
> 
> 
> In regard to 2 (don't have to remember argument order) argument ordering 
> is pretty inconsistent throughout the standard library.  I've eventually 
> memorized it for certain modules (e.g. lists) but most of the time I am 
> constantly checking the documentation for the proper argument order, 
> which is annoying and interrupts the flow of programming.  This is 
> something I almost never do in a language like Ruby but did fairly 
> regularly in a language like C.
> 
> Are you saying you don't have trouble remembering the argument order 
> across modules, or are you saying you don't mind constantly checking the 
> documentation?
> 
> -- 
> Tony Arcieri
> medioh.com <http://medioh.com>