Re: Defining polymorphism vs. overloading

In article <9008310419.AA06194@karakorum.berkeley.edu> oliver@karakorum.berkeley.edu (Oliver Sharp) writes:
> o Overloading means using the same name (or symbol) to invoke different
> code depending on the types of the arguments (or operands). So, an example
> ...
> o Polymorphism means using the same piece of code to operate on objects of
> different types. In LISP, cons is polymorphic because you can give it
> arguments of different types but it goes ahead and does its thing without
> worrying about it.


C. Strachey originated the terms "ad-hoc" and "universal" polymorphism
to distinguish these issues. overloading is an example of ad-hoc polymorphism,
automatic coercions such as real->int are another.
ML is the best example of universal polymorphism (what you call simply
polymorphism above). See:
@article{Cardelli86,
  author = "Luca Cardelli and Peter Wegner",
  year = "1985",
  month = "December",
  journal = "ACM Computing Surveys",
  volume = "17",
  number = "4",
  pages = "471-522",
  title = "On Understanding Types, Data Abstraction, and Polymorphism"
}
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