[cbkeller]

In this context, I think there might be an argument to be made that Julia is to multiple dispatch (or multiple dispatch + JAOT) as the iPhone is to “touchscreen computers that can make phone calls”.

It’s not that it’s the first, but it seems to be the first where the use of multiple dispatch throughout the community was sufficiently pervasive to kick-start the emergence of the strong network effects we’re now seeing w/r/t composability.

I would not be surprised to see more languages working to emulate this kind of combination of multiple dispatch and JAOT compilation in the future.

[pjmlp]

Except everyone is forgetting that I also mentioned Dylan, from Apple, and whose goal was to be a system programming language for the Newton OS, with the Dylan team winning over the C++ one, but internal politics made the decision to go with the outcome of the C++ team alongside NewtonScript.

[eigenspace]

I directed most of my comments towards CL because I know more about it than Dylan. My understanding is that Dylan lacks parametric types, so that comment can be straightforwardly applied to Dylan. IMO Parametric types are a really important part of this.

Regarding performance, I don't know much about this in Dylan. Was Dylan able to completely remove the runtime overhead of multiple dispatch for type stable code?

[pjmlp]

Yep, some research was done in that domain, https://opendylan.org/documentation/publications.html

Also note that it was competing against C++ as the Newton OS system programming language, it only lost due to politics.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15107367

[eigenspace]

Yes, I fully agree it's a darn shame that Dylan was abandoned by Apple.

[cbkeller]

I think Dylan would be (perhaps ironically) the Newton in this analogy. (or maybe General Magic?)

Pioneering and ahead of its time in many ways, but for whatever reason it seems that the use of multiple dispatch in Dylan seems to have not (yet?) led to the same level of ecosystem-wide composability.