Python and generic programming

[Jive Dadson]

Alex Martelli wrote:
> 
> Roman Suzi <rnd at onego.ru> wrote:
> 
> > I wonder, does Python support generic programming paradigm, and to what extent
> 
> It appears to me to support generics at least as well as C++ does.  I
> just write normal code (no typechecks) and voila, the equivalent of C++
> templates (at least).  What do you think is missing?
> 
> Alex

How about specialization?  I'm relatively new to Python.  I ask for
information, not to be argumentative.

If you have, for example, several data-types for matrices, how do you
write code that will automatically find the right routine for quickly
multiplying a vector by a diagonal matrix represented as a vector, and
automatically call the right code for multiplying by a sparse matrix
represented by some sparse coding, etc?