Re: Syntax question

[holsti@cs.Helsinki.FI (Niklas Holsti)]

In <3k7t8o$4pt@hacgate2.hac.com> dkusu@atc-1s.hac.com (David Kusuda)
writes, among other things:

>I agree with Michael's points regarding named parameter association. 
>But the named parameter association is also necessary to:

>  a) Specify the parameter list in an arbitrary order--I think this is a weak point
>     as far as readability/maintainability, but still a point.

Named parameter association can also help maintenance. Recently, for
peculiar and irrelevant reasons we changed the declaration of a
subprogram from P (X: in Some_Type; Y: in Some_Type) to
P (Y: in Some_Type; X: in Some_Type). Since our coding rules require
named parameter association for all calls, we could do this without
searching for and correcting all calls to P. The _meaning_ of X
and Y was not changed, just their order in the parameter list.

>Dave

Niklas Holsti
Working but not speaking for Space Systems Finland Ltd
--
Niklas Holsti                         
    Space Systems Finland Ltd, phone +358 0 4354 3928
    Tekniikantie 12, P.O. Box 324, FIN-02151 Espoo, Finland