multiple-dispatch concept

[colinleach]

As requested (long ago)!

I'm not entirely happy with it it the moment, but I'll read it with fresh eyes tomorrow and see if I can think of improvements.

I aim to restore old-encounters to wip status and get that updated. I watched the https://youtu.be/kc9HwsxE1OY video again yesterday, and noted that the exercise is lifted directly from a talk we provide a link to (with solutions in Julia and C++). Not ideal, but I don't have anything better.

[depial]

Minor suggestions and a couple typos is all. Feel free to ignore the suggestions if you don't find them necessary

[colinleach]

I'll deal with the details you suggest, but there is a bigger issue. Since I submitted this, I've become increasingly uncomfortable about not mentioning parametric methods. I don't really understand them, and the documentation isn't great, but I think we need to say something. Your comment on the encounters exercise is also relevant here.

I'll try to add a section, but I probably need your help: you clearly are more familiar with this topic than I am (true of most of Julia, tbh!).

[colinleach]

Please can you cast a critical eye over the new section on parametric methods? It's near the bottom of the About and (slightly shortened) the Introduction.

Once we're both happy(ish), the changes can be copied to encounters.

[depial]

you clearly are more familiar with this topic than I am

I'm not so sure! I feel like I'm winging it most of the time, so I believe I may have managed to misrepresent my actual level of sophistication in Julia.

With that out of the way... I've tried to give an example here which shows some of the behaviors we've been talking about (e.g. type inference and conversion), so let me know if you think it can be useful. It's a bit long, but I wanted to attempt to be fairly thorough, so it could be shorten if necessary.

[depial]

As a general note: From my perspective, the two versions of Parametric Methods seem nice and concise. I believe the most important information is in there to get people started while avoiding getting bogged down in too many details.