title: No named parameters in Ruby?
body: <p>This is so simple that I can't believe it caught me.</p>
  
  <pre><code>def meth(id, options = "options", scope = "scope")
    puts options
  end
  
  meth(1, scope = "meh")
  
  -&gt; "meh"
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I tend to use hashes for argument options just because it was how the herd did it– and it is quite clean. I thought it was the standard. Today, after about 3 hours of bug hunting, I traced down an error to this gem I happen to be using that <em>assumes</em> named parameters will be honored. They are not.</p>
  
  <p><strong>So, my question is this: Are named parameter officially not honored in Ruby (1.9.3), or is this a side effect of something I'm missing? If they are not, why not?</strong></p>