On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 7:58 AM, Fil Mackay <f...@vertigotechnology.com>wrote:
> How can I do this? Surely parametric parameters can build on one another..?
Not in method dispatch, at least not yet. I'm not sure how you can be
shocked by this. There's a tower of dispatch power:
(a) single dispatch
(b) multiple dispatch
(c) diagonal dispatch
(d) triangular dispatch
Classical imperative languages give you none of these. Object-oriented
languages introduced (a) and there was much rejoicing and revolution in
computer programming. The occasional fancy language like CLOS or Dylan has
provided both (a) and (b). Julia provides (a) through (c), advancing the
state of dispatch further than it's been advanced before. Yet somehow
you're expecting (d) too? Where is that expectation coming from? Certainly
not other languages. Have we provided so much dispatch power that it's a
shock to the system when there is a limit to it?
