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Posted by andsoitis 7 days ago

A polyglot's guide to multiple-dispatch (2016)(eli.thegreenplace.net)
71 points | 16 comments
Panzerschrek 3 days ago|
As I know C++ now allows multiple dispatch for std::variant: https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/utility/variant/visit2.htm....

And std::variant is now a better choice for cases like in the article above, where previously inheritance was used to represent a closed set of possible subtypes.

RossBencina 3 days ago||
Where "now" means C++17 or C++20 depending on whether or not you understand what INVOKE<R> semantics are?
maattdd 3 days ago||
TIL that std::visit supports multiple variants. How new is that ?
MathMonkeyMan 3 days ago||
Always did, as far as I know. Never knew why...
gobdovan 4 days ago||
This is a nice illustration of the expression problem, which the article itself points out toward the end. Multiple dispatch is a language-level way to solve it. Crafting Interpreters [1] has a very approachable Java-based chapter that also covers these patterns in detail.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expression_problem

[1] https://craftinginterpreters.com/representing-code.html

ur-whale 3 days ago||
Would have been nice to mention that it's one thing that Julia seem to have gotten right.
Jtsummers 3 days ago|
It's a series of articles, Julia is (briefly) mentioned in Part 3.
fungiblecog 4 days ago||
if only programmers cared about functionality as much as syntax we'd be living in a lisp heaven
3cats-in-a-coat 4 days ago|
You need some sort of critical majority that cares about deeper aspects of whatever (over superfice) or else everyone focuses on superfice, as that's what all the public debates are about.

But lacking that, lisp could improve its syntax (did that, BTW not hard, just added some containers and a few standard infix operators, which all compile to lists).

eliben 3 days ago||
Thanks for posting this!

Just a quick note that this post is the first in a series: see https://eli.thegreenplace.net/tag/multiple-dispatch for the full series

lisper 4 days ago|
Cue the smug Common Lisp weenies...

Oh, wait, that's me :-)

andsoitis 4 days ago||
Part 3 of this series discusses Common Lisp - https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2016/a-polyglots-guide-to-mult...
sevensor 3 days ago|||
Huh, that is cleaner than a giant pattern match. It would be nice to have this at work, I know exactly how I’d use it...

Oh no, this is how lisp ruins people, isn’t it.

adgjlsfhk1 4 days ago|||
don't worry. the Julia peeps can also be smug about this (as one)
upghost 4 days ago|||
To your point, I assume the "polyglot" part was referring to the arguments this would spawn in the comment section
shawn_w 3 days ago||
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