[ufo]

switch statements and method calls are kind of duals of each other. One makes it easy to add new classes but fixes the set of methods and the other makes it easy to add new methods but fixes the set of classes. It doesn't have to do with runtime.

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ExpressionProblem

[ANTSANTS]

Yeah, I said as much (even calling them duals) in a sibling comment.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8375910

Method calls don't need to be fixed either. Just because C++ stores virtual methods in a fixed-sized table doesn't mean Lua/Javascript/etc can't store them in hash tables. And a list of hooks is sort of like an extensible switch statement, but bare switch statements like you were describing obviously don't have that kind of runtime flexibility.