At 12:21 AM 2/28/04 -0500, Christopher Armstrong wrote:
Wow. glyph explained to me what he wanted before with the no-instantiation IFoo.meth(x), but I didn't realize that it really _is_ like generic functions. That's awesome. :-)
Well, a generic function with a couple of interesting twists, like being able to say that a particular signature is based on a protocol rather than a specific class, with transitive adaptation taking place. So, if the closer adaptation path is that the object gets adapted to an interface you support, then that's what you'll get passed to the function. The other twist is that you can create a new generic function, and then declare that it is "implied by" another generic function. You'll then "inherit" all of the definitions from the old generic function, allowing you to then just override certain specific implementations of the function in your new function.