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

[Thomas Lindgren]

----- Original Message ----
> From: Tony Arcieri <tony@REDACTED>
> ...
> Frankly I'm surprised by the amount of resistance I'm seeing here.  Keyword
> arguments are wildly popular in languages like Objective C, Python, and Ruby
> (although the latter only has faux keyword arguments).  I do believe this is
> the first time I've ever seen people opposed to keyword arguments.


Not to mention dear old Common Lisp. 

However, I can think of a couple of issues:

1. How do we handle higher-order calls efficiently?
2. How do we handle code change efficiently and correctly?

By "efficiently", I mean a solution very close in cost to function calls in the current VM. By "correctly", I mean potential trouble with parameter tags changing in the new version of a module (or, even worse, changing meanings).

Best,
Thomas