Modules vs. Packages

[Christopher Brind]

Why is a colon so important to named parameters?

@SomeAnnotation(options = 1)
void draw(int x, int y, Color color = BLACK);

Seems to work just as well, (or just as badly, depending on your view
point).

Cheers,
Chris


2009/2/5 Neal Gafter <neal at gafter.com>

> On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 10:25 PM, Paul Benedict <pbenedict at apache.org>wrote:
>
>> Joshua Bloch wrote in his latest "Effective Java" book that
>> annotations, when first introduced, missed an opportunity to use the
>> NAME:VALUE notation precedent. If that decision was made, it would be
>> easy enough to expand the language for default parameter values too.
>>
>
> When I first designed the syntax for annotations, I used a colon instead of
> an equals sign for this reason.  Josh changed it to the equals sign,
> insisting that Java will never have named parameters.  Given that it's too
> late to go back to my original design, his change of heart is little
> consolation.
>
>
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