From: Tom Sawyer <transami@...>
Date: 2002-09-13T04:20:20+09:00
Subject: Re: not grasping the method overloading/multi-dispatch thing

On Thu, 2002-09-12 at 12:40, Phil Tomson wrote:
> It _would_ be nice to be able to declare two meth methods as shown above 
> instead of having to test the type of the argument.

yes it would be nice.
 
> However, I also agree with David that this could change the nature of the 
> language.  I also suspect that there will be a performance 
> hit for all code even if you don't use method overloading.  IF it could be 
> implemented in such as way as to not impact performance if you don't use 
> the feature, then I'd probably lean towards doing it.  

a loss of 50% performance is compensated for in 18 months by moore's
law. in this case i imagine we're talking around 1%.

sounds like a nice feature, it has been mentioned before but now has a
much better conceptual model to stand on.

i think it stands a chance of making ruby more "ruby", rather than less.
though i understand the trepidation.

-- 
tom sawyer, aka transami
transami@transami.net