ECMAScript Proposal: Named Function Parameters

I recently ran across the ES wiki which is documenting proposals and features for new versions of ECMAScript (JavaScript). I was excited to see the spread operator “...” which basically brings Perl-style lists to JavaScript. I was also excited to see the spread-related rest parameters which basically implement Python’s positional parameter glob *args; however, I did not see something equivalent to Python’s named parameter glob **kwargs (see on Python Docs).

I’ve been giving thought to passing in named arguments to function calls in JavaScript, eliminating the need for the current pattern of wrapping named arguments in an object, like:

function foo(kwargs){
    if(kwargs.z === undefined)
        kwargs.z = 3; //default value
    return [kwargs.x, kwargs.y, kwargs.z];
}
foo({z:3, y:2, x:1}); //=> [1, 2, 3]

Instead of this, I’d love to be able discretely define what arguments I’m expecting in a positional list, but then also allow them to be passed in as named arguments:

function foo(x, y, z){
    return [x, y, z];
}
foo(1, 2, 3) === foo(z:3, x:1, y:2); //=> [1, 2, 3]

This could also work with the ES proposal for parameter default values:

function foo(x, y, z = 3){
    return [x, y, z];
}
foo(1, 2) === foo(y:2, x:1); //=> [1, 2, 3]

Although the current proposal has a requirement that only trailing formal parameters may have default values specified, this shouldn’t be necessary when named parameters are used:

function foo(x = 1, y, z){
    return [x, y, z];
}
foo(z:3, y:2); //=> [1, 2, 3]

Furthermore, although the current spread proposal only works with arrays, it could also work with objects for named parameters:

var kwargs = {y:2, x:1, z:3};
foo(...kwargs); //=> [1,2,3]

Finally, the rest parameters proposal uses spread to implement the rough equivalent of Python’s positional parameter glob (*args), but I’m not sure how it could also be applied to named parameters to support Python’s **kwargs at the same time—I’m not sure how named rest parameters would work. For example in Python:

def foo(x, *args, **kwargs):
    return [x, args[0], kwargs['z']]
foo(1, 2, z=3); //=> [1, 2, 3]

Python has the * to prefix positional parameter globs and ** to prefix named parameter globs, but so far ECMAScript only has one prefix the “...” spread operator.

These are just some rough ideas about how JavaScript could support named parameters. I’m sure there things I’ve missed and implications I haven’t thought of, but I wanted to get my thoughts out there. What do you think?