Keyword arguments are great for increasing readability and making code more robust but in my opinion they are underused compared to the gains they can provide. You often end up with code like:

foo(bar=bar, baz=baz, foobaz=foobaz)

which is less readable than the ordered argument version when the names of the variables and the keywords match. ( Here's another guy pointing out the same thing: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7041752/any-reason-not-to-always-use-keyword-arguments#comment8553765_7041986)

I have a suggestion that I believe can enable more usage of keyword arguments while still retaining almost all the brevity of ordered arguments: if the variable name to the right of the equal sign equals the keyword argument ("foo=foo") make it optional to just specify the name once ("=foo"). For completeness I suggest also make the same change for dictionaries: {'foo': foo} -> {:foo}. This change would turn the following code:

This should be compatible with existing code bases since the new forms are syntax errors in current python.

What do you think?

/ Anders Hovmöller