[Bioc-devel] Problem with generic methods name conflicts

[Vincent Carey]

this seems reasonable to me.  i still vote for keeping the generics in
Biobase until benefits of breaking it off are clarified.

On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 12:09 PM, Simon Anders <anders at embl.de> wrote:
> Dear Vince
>
>> "object" is here just a parameter name, not a signature.  i believe
>> this issue is independent of the
>> concept of multiple dispatch.
>
> What I meant is this: If you consider it unlikely that any package author
> who may want to define methods with a certain name wants to dispatch on
> anything else than just the type of the first argument, it is sufficient to
> specify only one parameter (and then "...") in the generic. This limits any
> method to signatures with only a single type, but this will be fine,
> usually. And to stay general, we should give this one parameter as standard
> name, "object". Then, defining this generic is a "mere formality", and we
> may have a standing policy that such a generic is simply added to a central
> place (Biobadse or BioGenerics) whenever requested, without need for
> discussion.
>
>  Simon
>