function argument 'shorthand'

[Bill Baxter]

In article <e4tv46$2007$1 at digitaldaemon.com>, Dave says...
>
>Walter Bright wrote:
>> Dave wrote:
>>> Couldn't find this in the archive, so I don't know if it's been discussed
>>> before.
>>>
>>> One of the things I like about Pascal is that you can specify function 
>>> arguments
>>> of the same type w/o repeating the type. So, in D we could:
>>>
>>> int foo(int x, y, z) // y and z are type int
>>> {}
>>>
>>> int bar(int x = 1, y = 2, z = 3) // y and z are type int
>>> {}
>>>
>>> void baz(int x, y, double d, f = 3.14159)  // y is an int, f is a double
>>> {}
>>>
>>> Thoughts?
>> 
>> It has grammatical ambiguities. Consider:
>> 
>> int foo(int x, y);
>> 
>> Is the second a declaration of y of type int, or is it a parameter of 
>> type y?
>
>(Red faced) Of course.
>
>Thanks,
>
>- Dave

So what about a semi colon or colon or something instead of the comma?

int foo(int x ; y, float z);
int foo(int x : y : z);

Course, then the syntax doesn't resemble the declaration syntax any more.
Personally, I think arguments with types but not names is bad style anyway.  The
argument name gives you a clue as to what that parameter is supposed to be for.
If you see

int foo(int,int,int)

there's no way to tell what those ints are for, and you can't document them
either because there's no parameter name to refer to in the documentation.

--bill