Your example is less code, but it is not type-safe. I can pass no parameters, or one, or two, and I can pass whatever data type you want. If I pass your function two numbers, it will crash, but you will not be able to find that problem during compilation. In fact, if I am a smart hacker, I can probably force your program to do unexpected things that it wasn't supposed to do. Not a particularly big issue in VFP, but still.

A non type-safe program is not controllable from the outside by a runtime environment. If you make an error programming, then the system will crash or perform in unexpected ways. That is not considered "trustworthy". Since trustworthy computing has become such a big issue, this is a big deal.

Of course, people *can* improve a function like the one you show below a lot, but: 1) Nobody has the time to add all the code to make such a function type-safe, and 2) as you can see in your example, nobody even things about it.

As a side-note: If you add all the code that is required to make sure that your function below operates correctly in 100% of all cases (or close to that), you need to write a lot more code than in the .NET version. A .NET version will also be much faster, since the VFP version has to inspect meta-information such as types and parameter counts.

Markus


>>Overloaded method are not so bad. For one thing, it can lead to more elegant code because you can have different code for a different list of parameters. And thus, you don't have to write lines like this :
> I didn't say that so bad. Only I said I don't needed in in VFP. Usually overloaded methods do some in most situations, so at worst in VFP you have to write a case or if in first lines like in your sample.
>
>>

>>FUNCTION Test(Param1, Param2)
>>DO CASE
>>CASE PCOUNT() == 1
>>   ** do this
>>CASE PCOUNT() == 2
>>   ** do that
>>ENDCASE
>>

>>
>>with overloaded methods, you can write :
>>

>>FUNCTION Test(Param1)
>>  ** do this
>>ENDFUNC
>>
>>FUNCTION Test(Param1, Param2)
>>  ** do that
>>ENDFUNC
>>

>>
>
>
>What is the different? I can't see. But in vfp I can do that:
>
>

>FUNCTION Test(Param1, Param2)
>   if PCOUNT()== 2
>      param2=iif(type("param1")="C","",0)
>   endif
>return param1+param2
>

> Look at that. Code lines fewer from a overloaded method.