Pretty please: Named arguments

[Russel Winder]

On Sun, 2011-02-27 at 23:40 -0800, Bekenn wrote:
> On 2/27/2011 11:32 PM, Russel Winder wrote:
> > The Python mechanism relies on the fact that despatch is by name and not
> > by signature.  Languages that dispatch by signature will have
> > significantly greater problems!
> >
> 
> I don't follow; the compiler has to look up the correct function 
> signature whether you use named arguments or not.  How is this 
> significantly different?

In C, C++ and D yes, in Python despatch is only by function name, not by
signature -- exactly because of the parameter passing mechanism.

Put it another way, Python does not have function overloading.

-- 
Russel.
=============================================================================
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder at ekiga.net
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