Re: Dynamic polymorphism vs. Static polymorphism

mlimber wrote:


I have to debate that statement and say they are completely different.
Dynamic vs. Static polymorphism do completely different things
resulting in vastly different behavior. One simple example:

struct Abstract { virtual void f() = 0; }

struct A : Abstract { void f() {} };
struct B : Abstract { void f() {} };

void fun(Abstract * a) { a->f(); }

vs.

struct A { void f(); }
struct B { void f(); }

template <typename A>
void fun(A * a) { a->f(); }

Note how these two behave completely differently. One has a single
function that allows pointers of any of the three types to be passed in
and calls the appropriate implementation of f() for the input. The
other creates two completely different functions that accept completely
unrelated inputs; it only looks similar to the programmer. This is a
very important distinction; they are actually not the same at all.