I don't know what "named parameters" and "positional parameters" are and how I (as a developer) have control over these. I will have to find something to read on that.

Dmitry,

Here's another way to look at it....in SQL Server, suppose you have a stored procedure like the following...

CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.GetOrders
@CustomerID int, @StartDate date, @EndDate date
as
     select * from Orders where CustomerID = @CustomerID AND OrderDate BETWEEN @StartDate AND @EndDate
GO

If I used name parameters to call the proc, I can pass in the parms in any order.....such as...

EXEC dbo.GetOrders @StartDate = '1-1-1999', @EndDate = '1-31-1999', @CustomerID = 101

However, if I simply pass in values without referring to the parms by name, I have to pass them in, in the original order specified in the proc

EXEC dbo.GetOrders    101, '1-1-1999',   '1-31-1999'