Re: Generics vs. Message passing: object namespaces

On 2/23/07, Matt Knox <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 2/23/07, Michael Walter <[email protected]> wrote:
> > On 2/23/07, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > > If I understand it correctly, your point is that if you need  the draw
> > > > method from gun, picture, blood, and duel modules, that in an
> > > > object-dispatch system, you can say:
> > > >
> > > > gun.draw args
> > > > duel.draw args
> > > > ...etc.
> > > >
> > > > instead of
> > > > (draw_gun gun args)
> > > >
> > > > But it seems that it should be trivial to have, in a CLOS-style
> generic
> > > > function system, 'draw' bound to a function that would look at the
> type of
> > > > its first argument and dispatch to the appropriate GF. Then you'd
> have:
> > > >
> > > > (draw gun args)
> > > > ...
> > > > and the only differences would be syntax and the ease with which
> > > > autocompletion could be done.
> > > >
> > > > Am I missing something?
> > >
> > >
> > >     No, I think that is correct, but that is not how CLOS-style generic
> > > OOP works, the original subject of criticism. [...]
> >
> > In what way is using dynamic dispatch not how CLOS-style generic OOP
> > works? I mean, this seems to be pretty much what defgeneric/defmethod
> > are for.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Michael
> >
>
> The difference is that if you define 3 different GFs (not different methods
> on a single gf, but 3 different functions) in different source files, each
> with the same name, CLOS does not automatically smash them together into a
> sngle, more generic function.

But why don't you define 3 different methods of the same generic function?

Regards,
Michael