ECMAScript currently allows you to pass extra arguments without any annotations
Our proposed approach would require special syntax to indicate when methods/functions allow optional arguments
This presents problems for old code!
By saying your code is ECMAScript 2 the compiler can apply the new tight rules for the number of arguments
if you don't say which version of JavaScript your web page is written in, the script is interpreted as the old version of Javascript (not even as JavaScript 1.2)
what is the default - tight argument counts or not?
One proposal is to make tight argument counts conditional on type annotations being used by the function declaration. This is somewhat subtle, but avoids the need for pragmas
Sam proposes that tight argument counts are applied to methods but not to functions. He is scared by a language pragma approach
Waldemar thinks it is more important for functions and methods to work the same way - i.e. he disagrees with Sam's proposal.
Herman doesn't want to have to compile functions and methods to support var args.
We choose to punt on this decision for now. What new information is needed to solve this? Herman needs more time to think this over.