> Does Julia have this quality? Multiple dispatch, as in Julia, Mathematica, CommonLisp, etc, does get you much closer to this vision than single dispatch. To

> Does Julia have this quality? Multiple dispatch, as in Julia, Mathematica, CommonLisp, etc, does get you much closer to this vision than single dispatch. To an extent, but then you're on your own again. Maybe consider compilation as a collaboration of a computer and a wetware compiler. You have knowledge and do analysis which you are unable to share with the computer compiler. For silly tiny illustration, you might know some size variable has to be an integer power of 2, but most language's type systems don't let you tell the compiler that. Or think of writing a datatype in old C - a struct and a bunch of functions. You have a mental model of how they should all hang together, and then you mentally compile that down and hand emit C code and tests. Or you could hand emit assembly code and tests instead. But the C compiler is the more helpful collaborator. You can talk about more (with some sacrifices), and more easily. Now given say two structs and a bunch of associated functions, multiple dispatch allows weaving them together without pains which in single dispatch so discourage weaving. Which is better, but still, you've a couple of structs, a bunch of functions, and a still limited ability to express your intent so the computer compiler can help you with it. So you can have multiple dispatch of + and - , and more easily add new numeric types, but any relationship between + and - is still all in your mind - the compiler has no idea that you think them connected.