polymorphism : Java Glossary

by Roedy Green ©1996-2008 Canadian Mind Products
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polymorphism: A generic term meaning having many forms. You can use the same name for several different things and the compiler automatically figures out which version you wanted. There are several types of polymorphism supported in Java, shadowing, overriding, and overloading. Even though the term polymorphic means literally "having many forms", most computer scientists don’t include overloading as polymorphism, just overriding. Perhaps this is because overriding is much more difficult to implement and they don’t want to dilute the achievement.

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