From: Jason Clinton

...Actually I believe it comes from LISP or possibly Smalltalk or its predecessor Simula.

Well, I wasn't trying to give the full history of function overloading. I was merely pointing to the source of function overloading for .Net. LISP by it's very design is overloadable. However you might be able to argue that FORTRAN also was able to overload functions, and since FORTRAN predates LISP... (however don't let McCarthy hear you say that)

-----Original Message----- From: Gerald Combs

Next you'll be telling us that there were personal computers before the IBM PC. Sheesh.

Yes! I believe the proper term for it is "brain". Of course it's not a "binary personal computer", and it doesn't always come with sound or a monitor, but the great thing about it, is you never need to reboot, add memory or replace the harddrive. Once the memory or storage system goes or it shuts down it's game over. Of course scientists are working on replacing or enhancing memory and storage abilities and on extending the effective lifetime of brains. Then of course there's the Babcock personal computer, there for anyone who wants to build one.

"No one will ever need more than 1 computer." - Thomas Watson