[disgruntledphd2]

> Yes, multiple dispatch is not some highfalutin ivory tower concept that only comes up in specialized code. For example, the model in question could define custom plotting recipes[1] so that you can just call plot() and have it produce something useful.

This is literally the whole conception behind generic functions in R (print, plot, summary etc).

I agree it's great, but Julia is building on a lot of prior art here.

[BadInformatics]

For sure, and one would be remiss not to mention Dylan, CL/CLOS and Clojure here as well. My quibble was with the claim that multiple dispatch rarely shows up in practice, which you've pretty clearly shown is not the case in R!

[disgruntledphd2]

Yup, the R-FAQ specifically calls out Dylan and CL as influences.