Re: Closures versus objects

James Y Knight wrote:
> On Feb 20, 2007, at 2:49 AM, Pascal Costanza wrote:
> 

>> The point is that often independent definitions invite what I'll  call 
>> the
>> "modularity problem" where definitions look ok in isolation but  
>> surprising
>> effects happen in combination.  Similar to what
>>  (+ 1 2 "foo")
>> might do if we allowed + to be generic."


> which, of course, has the exact same behavior as the generic length  
> above. That choice of behavior is simply a choice in specification,  and 
> really has very little to do with whether you use a generic  function or 
> not.

I think Pascal was aiming more towards the observation that lisp 
couldn't figure out how to do it well, so didn't do it at all.

I think there may room for an interesting paper comparing the different 
approaches to problem  solving; is it preferable to have a rapid, but 
somewhat haphasard solution, or a gem, but much later?