A great feature that can be used in more dynamic languages is multiple dispatch. Here’s an example in Julia taken from the Wikipedia article.
abstract type SpaceObject end
struct Asteroid <: SpaceObject
# Asteroid fields
end
struct Spaceship <: SpaceObject
# Spaceship fields
end
collide_with(::Asteroid, ::Spaceship) = # Asteroid/Spaceship collision
collide_with(::Spaceship, ::Asteroid) = # Spaceship/Asteroid collision
collide_with(::Spaceship, ::Spaceship) = # Spaceship/Spaceship collision
collide_with(::Asteroid, ::Asteroid) = # Asteroid/Asteroid collision
collide(x::SpaceObject, y::SpaceObject) = collide_with(x, y)
The collide
function calls collide_with
which, at runtime, will inspect the
types of its arguments and dispatch to the appropriate implementation.
Julia was created with multiple dispatch as a first-class citizen, it is used liberally in its ecosystem. C++ does not have access to such a feature natively, but there are alternatives that I will be presenting in this article, and try to justify there uses and limitations.