Question

Problem:
A Javascript function needs few parameters to work with:

function kick(person, reason, amount) {
    // kick the *person* with the *amount*, based on the *reason*
}

As there’s no way to do function overloading in JS like how you do in Java, if it needs to be designed for easy future improvement (parameters adding), it can be written as:

/* Function Parameters pattern */
function kick() {
    // kick the person as in *arguments[0]*, with the amount as in *arguments[1]*,
    // based on the reason as in *arguments[2]*, with the strength as in *arguments[3]*
}

or

/* Object Configuration Pattern */
function kick(config) {
    // kick the person as in *config.person*, with the amount as in *config.amount*,
    // based on the reason as in *config.reason*, with the strength as in *config.strength*
}

I do know that Object Configuration Pattern allows augmentation for any default properties.

So, the question is:
If I don’t need to augment any properties with the parameters, is there any significant reason of using any one of the proposed solutions as opposed to the other?

Answer 1

Using an object has a few advantages:

1. The code is more readable

Consider the following two calls:

kick({user: u,
      reason: "flood",
      log: true,
      rejoin: false,
      timeout: 60000,
      privmessage: true});

kick(u, "flood", true, false, 60000, true);

and imagine someone else reading the call. What is the first true? Note also that yourself in a few month would be in the same exact position (not remembering what is the fourth parameter to kick is very similar to not knowing it).

2. You can tunnel parameters

With the object approach you can pass a function a set of parameters that this function must use to call another function

function kickgroup(users, parms) {
    for (var i=0; i<users.lenght; i++) {
        var uparms = Object.create(parms);
        uparms.user = users[i];
        kick(uparms);
    }
}

Note also that in the arguments case you don’t need to punish yourself by using arguments[x] syntax. You can just declare the parameters and add them as the function evolves: any parameter that has not been passed will be set to undefined (and if you need you can still access arguments.length to distinguish if the caller explicitly passed your function undefined).