Support for better modularity

[marknitek]

Since the early days of NAV we have a bunch of limitations that stop us from writing highly modular code and reusable code.
It would be great when the change to the new AL Language would overcome some of these limitations.

• Not all types are supported as return types of functions
• No support for interfaces or another type of abstraction (other then RecRef which is limited)
• We can not pass objects as parameters
• No support for optional parameters in functions or function overloading

I'am sure there are some more which i don't remember right now

Are there any plans to enhance the language to support things like this?

[luxzeitlos]

We can not pass objects as parameters

This is not true. All Objects that can be stored as variables can be passed as parameters.

[marknitek]

Well what i meant was, that we have to specify the exact object. I am unable to pass "any" Page or "any" codeunit to then perform operations on it.

[stuartglasson]

The ideas exist and we have discussions about what to add to the language to make it more useful. Adding more OO support would help with many scenarios and save code duplication.
To be honest, we're still working hard on the basics and discussions about language are mostly discussions. Things we add today are language features to support the online platform or for security/isolation of Apps.

We will get there but we're not there yet.

As there's no "bug" in this issue, I'd like to close the comment. I'll do that in a few days unless you want to add more to the thread.

[stuartglasson]

Closing this issue as it's not really a bug. You can still find it in closed issues.