Is defining the storage location of parameters in function still necessary?

Question

In Solidity 0.8 and above, do we still need to explicit define where parameters of a function should be stored?

I have a seen a number of examples that show something like this:

function foo1(string[] memory name) public returns (bool) {
 //...
}

function foo2(string[] calldata name) internal pure returns (bool) {
 //...
}

function foo3(string[] storage name) external returns (bool) {
 //...
}

function foo4(string[] name) external returns (bool) {
 // Without defining the storage location to the param, it's works fine too!
}

Is defining the storage location to the parameters of functions still a necessary thing? Or will this be handled by Solidity? It seems like it will still work even if I don't define them.

As far I have read, there are certain types of functions (depending on its modifier) that Solidity will store the parameters at different places. So, I wonder since Solidity is going to do its own thing to the parameters, then what's the point of us still defining them in our code?

If it's still necessary, in what scenarios should I know that I would want to define the storage type for the parameters?

Answer 1

Prior to version 0.5.0 the data location could be omitted, and would default to different locations depending on the kind of variable, function type, etc., but all complex types must now give an explicit data location. - Solidity docs

If you can, try to use calldata as data location because it will avoid copies and also makes sure that the data cannot be modified. Arrays and structs with calldata data location can also be returned from functions, but it is not possible to allocate such types. Assignments between storage and memory (or from calldata) always create an independent copy.

Storage: is a key-value store.

Memory: is a byte-array, which hold the data in it until the execution of the function.

Check this answer for more info: Difference between Memory and Storage?

So its not necessarily needed for non complex types , but advised to ensure your function does precisely what you intend it to do and does not break due to these changes. It is still needed for complex types. See more here: https://docs.soliditylang.org/en/v0.5.10/miscellaneous.html#