Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!apple!netcomsv!jls
From: jls@netcom.COM (Jim Showalter)
Newsgroups: comp.object
Subject: Re: Functions without side effects (was Old confusion)
Message-ID: <1991Jun26.001847.24239@netcom.COM>
Date: 26 Jun 91 00:18:47 GMT
References: <130242@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <4888@osc.COM> <72893@microsoft.UUCP> <1991Jun21.013944.23970@netcom.COM> <20445@alice.att.com>
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  UNIX System {408 241-9760 guest}
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>You're doing it again, Jim.  This is the kind of thing that caused all
>the flamage about your earlier C-bashing.  Your points are valid enought
>without resorting to knocking down straw man code fragments.

Okay okay okay--fair enough.

>Try it this way:

>  Here we go again. The C equivalent of the above would typically look
>  something like:

>  	Print( "I love named parameter names", 5, Laserprinter, Helvetica );

>  This DOES take up less space. Is it more readable?

>My answer might be, "No, but with the exception of the wired-in constant
>5 for spacing (which should have some useful name instead), it is about
>equally readable."

Well, in this particular case you know what Laserprinter and Helvetica
happen to mean, so, unlike their friend the 5, they have sufficient
semantic content to be readable as is. How about this sort of thing
(this is NOT intended to be a straw man piece of bad code--I see this
stuff all the time, so unless the code I review is, in fact, submitted
to me by men made of straw, this rates as a legitimate code sample):

argl (4.5, 8, INCR, "bargl");

Even with a more readable name for the function, the arguments remain
essentially content-free without a lot of surrounding context. The whole
point of named parameter association is to provide the missing semantics
at the point of call, to wit:

argl (Azimuth => 4.5, Inclination => 8, Mode => INCR, Options => "bargl");

Yes, this is still semi-dreadful, but it is a definite improvement over
the first version, doesn't it? Why, you can almost start to figure out
what is going on!

Look, I'm not saying the advent of named parameter association will 
feed all the world's children, but I do tend to get a little hot under
the collar when people--the very people you accuse me of inventing as
straw men, by the way--respond to every advance in code readability with
the "verbose" label. I've said it before and I'll say it again--there
is nothing wrong with most hackers that couldn't be fixed with a remedial
course in touch typing...

>Besides, complaining about C is sort of irrelevant.  C++ is here now,
>and provides a variety of features that make it easier to write clean
>and robust code.  It's like us raggin' on Ada because Pascal had
>problems.  Who cares?

Okay, true enough. I grant you that, much as I take issue with its
warts, C++ DOES represent a golden opportunity to reboot the C/UNIX
culture with a different mindset--one that recognizes the value of
strong typing, abstraction, portability, maintainability, etc. On the
other hand, if the very same people who argue that formal names for
parameters are "verbose" are going to be doing the writing in C++,
what makes you think anything is going to change? At least when
people learn Ada they HAVE to learn a new language--it's not backward
compatible with Pascal.
-- 
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