discuss the several current ways of providing values to functions

[increpare]

there are several ways of passing values to functions in haxegon, we should discuss this

//#1, via function parameters
Gfx.setpixel(1,2, Col.Red);

//#2, via static variables
Gfx.linethickness = 2;

//#3, via optional parameters
Font.setfont(Font.blah, 3); //second parameter is optional, set to 2

//#4, via structs
Text.display(x,y,bip,bop,{...blurgh...});

[TerryCavanagh]

It does seem a bit gross when you put it all together like that, but to me they all individually feel like the best way of doing what they're doing.

Getting rid of structs is tempting. One way to do that would be to have a lot of new functions which changed settings, settextalpha() and setimagerotation() and things like that. Maybe that's worth thinking about.

I'm ok with the optional parameters. Maybe we need a better notation for them in the documentation/autocomplete? Pico8 does this to denote optional parameters in it's documentation:

pset x y [c]
spr n x y [w h] [flip_x] [flip_y]
clip [x y w h]
print str [x y [col]]

[TerryCavanagh]

Ok, after discussing this over lunch, here's the plan:

• Optional arguments will have default values specified in auto complete (e.g. Gfx.drawline(x1, y1, x2, y2, col, alpha = 1.0);)
• Struct based optional parameters are going, to be replaced by a some simple transform functions. (e.g Text.rotate(30), Gfx.scale(4);)

But this can wait until after the 0.5 beta.