Pretty please: Named arguments

[Steven Schveighoffer]

On Mon, 28 Feb 2011 14:56:15 -0500, Adam Ruppe <destructionator at gmail.com>  
wrote:

>> But then you're back to square one
>
> Obviously, you'd do:
>
> Size size;
> size.width = 10;
> size.height = 20;
>
> Instead of Size(10, 20).

I could also do:

int width = 10, height = 20;
foo(width, height);

The struct solution helps prevent incorrect ordering.  But other than  
that, it still looks more verbose than should be necessary.

> Another alternative is to give each element their own struct...
>
> struct Width { int width; alias width this; }
>
> foo(Width(10), Height(20));

This seems like extreme overkill.  I don't want to have to create a new  
struct for every parameter that I want to pass in a named fashion.

Why can't we just pass integers where integers make sense, and give them  
names that only exist at compile time?  I don't see the harm in the  
proposal.  Certainly every counter proposal I've seen to be able to  
"accomplish the same thing" with today's compiler is worse than just  
passing two ints.

-Steve