A nice way to step into 2012

[Don]

On 29.12.2011 23:00, Derek wrote:
> On Fri, 30 Dec 2011 01:16:56 +1100, Mehrdad <wfunction at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 12/29/2011 3:07 AM, Don wrote:
>>> sin(real x);
>>> sin(real theta);
>>>
>>> The argument name is *completely* irrelevant. That shouldn't be part
>>> of the interface.
>>>
>>> I have a really really bad taste in my mouth from named arguments in
>>> COM.
>> Great example... I can totally think that 'x', 'theta', 't', 'angle',
>> 'radians', 'value', 'val', 'v', etc. could all be valid parameter
>> names (some better than others, obviously).
>
> I'm not so convinced ...
>
> sin(real elephant);
>
> set_color( int JohnSmith, int penis, int dictionary);
>
>
> Actually, names do matter.
>
Some names are better than others. But are they part of the API? That's 
the issue.
Often, parameter names (such as in sin(x)) are arbitrary and 
meaningless. This is fundamental: the parameter names are arbitrary in 
mathematics.