I guess it doesn't really matter. In Clojure "+" is namespaced, so if I need to have it support a broader range of inputs, I could just switch my usage to "new-

I guess it doesn't really matter. In Clojure "+" is namespaced, so if I need to have it support a broader range of inputs, I could just switch my usage to "new-+", or I could call my new version "+" and import it from its namespace. Clojure does have a few features that support dynamic dispatch, so there may be some games there to play as well. The key point though is that "+" is really just my name for something that "adds two numbers together" -- that is strong enough semantics for me to express my function/business problem in terms of it. How I grow the supported range of that function...there are a number of ways I could go about that.