Re: complexity of mechanism

[John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org>]

felix winkelmann scripsit:

> What about:
> 
> (message-box <title> <prompt> [<config-object>]) ?
> 
> Configuration-objects could be composed, inherited,
> modified by accessors, whatever. I claim such an interface is
> cleaner, possibly less verbose and likely to be more efficient.

And you have the rest of the field behind you, which has long ago
abandoned zillions-of-arguments designs in favor of:

	(let ((m (make-message-box)))
	  (message-box-title-set! m <title>)
	  (message-box-prompt-set! m <prompt)
	  ...
	  (message-box-bgcolor-set! m <color>)
	  ...
	  (message-box-show m))

except less verbosely, thanks to pervasive inclusion polymorphism.

-- 
John Cowan    cowan@ccil.org    http://ccil.org/~cowan
        Sound change operates regularly to produce irregularities;
        analogy operates irregularly to produce regularities.
                --E.H. Sturtevant, ca. 1945, probably at Yale