As you remark yourself, this would break the syntax of passing the value 
of an assignment to a method. Som poeple might think this is dirty 
programming, but I happen to use it a lot.

I vote for ":" for named method parameters. Then again, I probably will 
not use the feature. Too Perlish for my taste.

Curne

>I'd prefer "=" instead of ":" because passing parameters is a kind of
>assignment in the scope of the functions body:
>
>   class PC
>     def initialize(cpu, os="Windows", **info)
>       @cpu = cpu        # "cpu" is a mandatory named arg
>       @os = os          # "os" is with the default value
>       @info = info      # symbol=>value hashtable
>     end
>   end
>   PC.new(os="Linux", cpu="P-III", clock="600MHz", hdd="30G")
>
>Although I must admit that this is incompatible to how ruby works
>currently:
>
>def foo(param="bar")
>	param
>end
>
>param="my value"
>
>foo()   		# => "bar"
>foo("baz")		# => "baz"
>foo(param="qux")	# => "qux"
>param			# => "qux" !!!
>
>Therefor there certainly is a need for discussion :)
>
>-billy
>
>  
>

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