[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
dispatching on keywords
- To: birkholz@crl.dec.com
- Subject: dispatching on keywords
- From: Stavros Macrakis <macrakis@osf.org>
- Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 13:17:50 -0500
- Cc: info-dylan@cambridge.apple.com
- In-reply-to: birkholz@crl.dec.com's message of Fri, 13 Nov 92 11:38:08 -0500 <9211131638.AA15701@mingus.crl.dec.com>
- Sender: macrakis@osf.org
The problem is really in the assumption that keyword arguments that
aren't provided by the user must be assigned a default value. I
suggest that: "If it hurts, don't do that." It is possible to
leave such arguments "unassigned" and leave it to the programmer to
detect and assign a default, if desired, _after_ method dispatch.
Agreed. Yet another role for #none (or #nothing). For that matter,
this gives the programmer a way of explicitly saying "I know that
there is a keyword K, but I do not want to provide a value for it",
not to be confused with "...and I give it the value #f":
K: #none
-s