On 21 November 2013 19:10, Sean P. DeNigris <[email protected]> wrote:

> > mm.. well, i prefer that fairly common would be to pass meaningful data
> back and forth rather than
> > dummy values.
> I don't understand... when I say "fairly common", I mean that in the C
> world, it seems common to use null-passing for optional arguments. I'm not
> saying that it's a good idea, but we don't have control over that, so...
>
> if it would be just C world :)

Another reason for not making this default, because checking for nil is one
extra check
for every piece of generated code which expects pointer, and i hope you
agree that while null-value is fairly common, non-null is much more common.


> > For that best solution, IMO, would be to use 2 methods which call same
> function,
> > but one uses 'nil' in function signature (and therefore method doesn't
> takes extra argument),
> > while other takes extra argument but doesn't accepts nils, for sure.
> Yuck ;)


but this is quite common in smalltalk isn't? Look at Canvas - good example
of overusing it i.e.:

drawThis: withThis: andThat:
drawThis: withThis: andThat: andAlsoThis:
drawThis: withThis: andThat: andAlsoThis: andAlsoThat:

:)

yes, sometimes it looks like unnecessary protocol bloating, but i think for
our case it is well justified.


> Cheers,
> Sean
>
> ------------------------------
> View this message in context: Re: NativeBoost: Documentation Suggestion
> and 
> Question<http://forum.world.st/NativeBoost-Documentation-Suggestion-and-Question-tp4720805p4724069.html>
>
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>



-- 
Best regards,
Igor Stasenko.

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