"Peter Dimov" <pdimov@mmltd.net> wrote in message news:001a01c520c7$6b03f790$6501a8c0@pdimov2... | David Abrahams wrote: | > I guess I haven't seen enough be definitively convinced one way or the | > other. I have heard stories from people who switch to dispatching via | That's the thing. It doesn't actually buy us anything. It only claims to | avoid potential problems. | * Does not allow a base-specific version to be picked up automatically for | derived classes. This seems only to be possible with ADL if there is no primary template; otherwise the primary template will often be a better match than the derived type, eg. #include <iostream> namespace Foo { template< class T > void foo( const T& r ) { std::cout << "foo"; } } namespace Boo { //template< class T > struct X { }; //template< class T > struct Y : public X//<T> { }; // template< class T > void foo( const X& r ) { std::cout << "boo"; } } int main() { // // This statement will alter the behavior! // Therefore, all classes that overload // foo, must specialize foo if they are templates // using namespace Foo; Boo::X x; Boo::Y y; foo( x ); foo( y ); } will print "boofoo". -Thorsten