[boost] Re: MultiMethod/Visitor Interest

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-09-29 16:29:48

Alexander Nasonov <alnsn_at_[hidden]> writes:

> David Abrahams wrote:
>> Jesse Jones <jesjones_at_[hidden]> writes:
>> 
>> >> 1) Compile time. Yes, this solution is strongly compile time.
>> >>    But I think it is an advantage :-)
>> >
>> > I disagree. The biggest benefit of multimethods is that they are
>> > flexible. 
>> 
>> Yeah.  It's hard to imagine how "compile-time multimethods" would be
>> any different from what C++ already provides in terms of overload
>> resolution and partial ordering.
>
> There is something more then runtime and compile-time. It's initialization
> time. Multimethods might be initialized with lots of MPL and other cool
> compile-time stuff and yet might being used at runtime flexibly.

Sure, I'm familiar with that technique.  One of my FSM examples uses
dispatch tables built at initialization time.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
http://www.boost-consulting.com