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From: Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: basic ada question
Date: 20 Aug 2005 10:28:29 -0400
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Date: 2005-08-20T10:28:29-04:00
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"Jeffrey R. Carter" <spam@spam.com> writes:

> Adrian Knoth wrote:
> 
> > It is a named parameter. You can use it to rearrange the order
> > of your parameters when calling a function/procedure.
> 
> It's more about clarity than order.

I strongly agree.  Being "creative" with the order of parameters makes
the code harder to read.  Uniformity is good.  I always use the same
order in all calls -- same order as the formals are declared -- even
when using named notation.  At least, I try -- I wish the compiler would
help me out by enforcing that.  (Or give me a tool that fixes it.)

>... Something like
> 
> Insert (Into => Name_List, Item => Current.Name);
> 
> is usually clearer than
> 
> Insert (Name_List, Current.Name);

Yes.  I'm a big fan of named notation.

Another advantage is when you have two parameters of the same type.
You can't accidently switch them if you used named notation.

I think you should choose formal parameter names that read nicely in
named-notation calls (even if they cause the body of the procedure to be
slightly less readable).

- Bob