I was actually having something a bit broader than C++ virtual methods in mind. Sorry about the fuzzyness. What I was thinking about is that in OO programming, you can use the same method name in multiple unrelated classes that might or might not be involved in polymorphism.

Now, in C++ you still need some kind of type specification for variables, but for Perl or Ruby (or even Java, if you don't mind a lot of introspection) you don't have to, which implies that the actual meaning of the "word" (method name) is entirely dependent on the context. You don't even need OO to achieve this: importing a method from another namespace, or including C header files basically boils down to the same thing.

Sure it can cause confusion, but can we actually do any better? Human language really is much more adept at disambuigating short words that might have multiple meanings vs reading reallyLongDescriptiveOnesThatGetIncrediblyDifficultToTypeRightAllTheTime. :-)

"What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"

In reply to Re^5: Some Insights from a Traveler Between Languages by Joost
in thread Some Insights from a Traveler Between Languages by skyknight

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