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From: rabin@sdcsla.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.cog-eng,net.lang
Subject: Re: Time for keyword parameters in prog. langs
Message-ID: <536@sdcsla.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 11-Apr-84 08:44:46 EST
Article-I.D.: sdcsla.536
Posted: Wed Apr 11 08:44:46 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Apr-84 01:38:44 EST
References: <3781@utcsrgv.UUCP>, <5775@mcvax.UUCP>
Organization: U.C. San Diego, Cognitive Science Lab
Lines: 33

Smalltalk procedure invocations alternate keywords and actual
parameters, as in

array at: i put: 'string' .

The args are really positional (you can't give them in the 
opposite order), but quite mnemonic.  
The procedure to be called is determined by the combination
of the type of the object stored in variable "array" and the
message name "at:put:".  The normal programming language
equivalent is

Declare ARRAY array;

array(i) = 'string' ;

The Smalltalk programming environment uses a database of object 
types and message names to catch typos, incorrect argument 
specifications, and so forth.

References:

Adele Goldberg, Smalltalk-80: The interactive programming environment,
	Addison-Wesley, 1984.

Adele Goldberg and David Robson, Smalltalk-80:  The language and its
	implementation, Addison-Wesley, 1983.


------------
Dan Rabin
University of California, San Diego (sdcsla on Usenet).