In article <E4voIF.86o@world.std.com>, bobduff@world.std.com (Robert A Duff) writes:
...
|> I've often thought that it would be an improvement to Ada, if the
|> programmer of the function declaration decides whether named or
|> positional notation should be used, for each parameter.  Instead, Ada
|> allows a little bit too much flexibility, for my taste: The programmer
|> of each call gets to decide.  Also, you can write the parameters in any
|> order, if they're named, which you can't do in Smalltalk.

A technical note: IMO this discussion confuses
the notion of "named parameter" with the notion of "mixfix".

AFAIK Smalltalk has not "named parameters" [of course parameters
_have_ names inside the method, but not outside]. Positional
correspondence is used to bind the arguments in a method-call
to its parameter-names.

Smalltalk has "mixfix". The name (=selector?) of the method can
be split in several words. In the method-call the arguments stand
between these words.

Ada has "named parameters". The name of the parameters appears (in Ada: 
can appear) in the function-call. The arguments in the functions-call
are bound to parameters by name-correspondence. 

AFAIK Ada does not have "mixfix" [for userdefined functions -
If-then-else might be seen as mixfix-function.]

Just my $.02

Ulf Schuenemann

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