There's a pretty major and obvious distinction between regular
functions and generic functions in any language that supports them.
Functions are relatively simple and easy to use, but functions are also
somewhat limited. If I define a function named print, and I want it to
support a new bit of data, I have to edit the source of the function
itself. If I have a generic function print, adding new functionality is
simple and seamless. I don't actually have to change existing code.
That's the point of generic functions of course. :)<br>
<br>Anyway, I'm wondering more about this distinction and it seems that
any time you use a regular function, you've already set limitations on
yourself. They simply aren't as extensible. I am interested if you
could get by using only generic functions, or if you'd run into
performance issues or other limitations that you wouldn't have in using
both regular and generic functions (PEAK-Rules)?<br>
<br>Is it feasible (or even something you'd want to do) to only use
generic functions? I also noticed this line in the readme, which seemed
related to my current question. "These decorators also all work with <i>existing</i> functions; you do not have to
predeclare a function generic in order to use it." What does that mean in practice?<br><br>Thanks<br>