[self-interest] Re: Would 'Self' make a good scripting language?

[Steve Dekorte]

nobody at nowhere.org wrote:
> For an excellent example of what can happen if you don't have
> optional parameters in a language, take a look at the Java's
> GridBagConstraints object. Its a total mess. To set the
> constraints on an object you have about 4-6 lines of code per
> Component of a window- it should have been a single line.
> That's bound to negatively impact reliability- there's just
> loads more things that can go wrong.

Shouldn't interfaces be built with GUIs?

> Take a look at TCL also- buttons take a single line to
> create... it takes 3x more code in Java. Self is closer
> to Java in this respect.

Why not clone an existing Button and modify it?

BTW, I've been using python, which has optional named parameters with 
defaults and I've yet to see it used for any good purpose. Mostly people
use them to make huge initializers (which I, and the writers of _Writing
Smalltalk with Style_ think is poor coding practice). I do think handling
variable arguments is important for certain kinds of applications though,
like implementing proxies. Lua has a more elegant way of dealing with these
than python.

steve

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