In many other interpreted programming languages like: Python, PHP, ActionScript 3.0, etc., you can have defaults to arguments that do not get passed to functions. In the three a fore mentioned languages, it's as easy as saying arg = 'default' inline in the function definition. This however is not available in the JavaScript interpreter. (It might be in ECMAScript 5, though.) But that can easily be remedied with a simple helper function.
I have met other programmers that find it ridiculous that you have to create features in JavaScript that are built into other languages. They use that to put down JavaScript and call it a terrible language. However, I think that's part of what makes JavaScript so great. JavaScript, though not as powerful in features as some other languages, offers enough flexibility and expressiveness that you can create what you feel that you are missing. Lets take a look at the problem and see how easy we can remedy it.
