Proposal: real struct literals

[Bill Baxter]

Jarrett Billingsley wrote:
> "Bill Baxter" <dnewsgroup at billbaxter.com> wrote in message 
> news:g3s45g$1ork$1 at digitalmars.com...
> 
>>> Tricky, but I'm sure that some (reasonable) constraints could be put on 
>>> this type of function to make it easier to disambiguate.
>> One thing that's lacking is that you wouldn't be able to tell which named 
>> parameters were set vs which not set.
> 
> Ooh, yeah.
> 
>>> Failing using structs as named parameters, there's certainly nothing 
>>> stopping the compiler from allowing named parameters with functions as 
>>> they are now.  They have the names right there :P
>> Except 36 years of experience with C and C++ that makes people expect that 
>> the names of formal parameters don't matter.  I think the only way to make 
>> such a big change palatable at this point is to require some special 
>> syntax to use it.
> 
> Funny, I don't feel the same way, probably because I've used D more than I 
> have C or C++ ;) 

Ok, but it would have impact on a backlog of 10 years' worth of D code 
too.  I agree it would be cool to have, but I also agree with Walter 
that switching D's default scheme to named parameters at this point 
would incur too much cost for too little benefit.

But when whoever sits down to start writing D++ or E, I hope he gives 
named parameters some serious thought.  That and putting the type after 
the variable instead of before.

--bb