[boost] Re: [Review] Named parameters library

From: David B. Held (dheld_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-11-17 16:19:37

Thorsten Ottosen wrote:
> [...]
> but you would rather refactor into using named parameters?

If the code were used by people other than me, possibly so.

> [...]
> I'm not insisting that you must refactor you N parameter function; I'm merely
> saying that
> chances are that it can be done and that it can improve the overall quality of
> your code.
> [...]

Of course it can be done.  The question all boils down to whether it
would improve the quality of the code.  Consider the most common example
that someone else gave: c'tors.  Now, are you suggesting that types not
have many data members, and should be decomposed until each type has,
say, less than 5 members?  If not, are you suggesting that we construct
such types partially, and then fill in the rest later, so that we can
avoid functions with many arguments?  There are many cases where you
simply have a lot of data coming from a lot of sources that need to go
into one function, and encapsulating that data or refactoring the
function is simply not appropriate or ideal.  You must write magical
code if you have never encountered such situations.

Dave