Fixing optional arguments?

[Rob MacLachlan <RAM@C.CS.CMU.EDU>]

    I don't think that we should significantly change the language in
a way that will adversely affect the performance of many
implementations to get an enhancement that is of marginal utility at
best.

    Many implementations on stock hardware use a link-table to resolve
the optional arg entry points at load time, thus eliminating any
run-time arg-count dispatching.  The change you propose would make
this impossible since there would be no way for the compiler to tell
how many "real" arguments are being supplied.

    Even if we disregard this efficiency issue, we would have good
reason to reject the proposal as being too radical a change in
language semantics.

  Rob