Dynamic Dispatch Mechanisms
A language may be implemented with different dynamic dispatch mechanisms. The choices of the dynamic dispatch mechanism offered by a language to a large extent alter the programming paradigms that are available or are most natural to use within a given language.
Normally, in a typed language, the dispatch mechanism will be performed based on the type of the arguments (most commonly based on the type of the receiver of a message). This might be dubbed 'per type dynamic dispatch'. Languages with weak or no typing systems often carry a dispatch table as part of the object data for each object. This allows instance behaviour as each instance may map a given message to a separate method.
Some languages offer a hybrid approach.
Dynamic dispatch will always incur an overhead so some languages offer the option to turn dynamic dispatch off for particular methods.
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“The nearer a conception comes towards finality, the nearer does the dynamic relation, out of which this concept has arisen, draw to a close. To know is to lose.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)