Bjarne Stroupstrup, the inventor of the C++ programming language, has an interesting technical FAQ about C++. He has an example in the FAQ that inspired me to try this out in C++, Java and C#. Have a look at the following C++ code. What do you think this prints?

(NOTE: The C++ code looks a bit weird. I had to replace the angle brackets with ‘[’ and ‘]’ because the WordPress editor does not let me enter angle brackets properly, even if I edit the HTML code manually…).

 #include [iostream]   // NOTE: Use angle brackets here

class Super {
public:
    void method(int i) {
        std::cout [[ "method(int): " [[ i [[ std::endl; // NOTE: Use angle brackets here
    }
};

class Sub : public Super {
public:
    void method(double d) {
        std::cout [[ "method(double): " [[ d [[ std::endl; // NOTE: Use angle brackets here
    }
};

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
    Sub obj;

    // Which method is called for each of these statements, the int or the double version?
    obj.method(10);
    obj.method(3.2);

    return 0;
} 

Here is the Java version. What do you think this prints? Do you think Java works the same as C++ or not?

 class Super {
    public void method(int i) {
        System.out.println("method(int): " + i);
    }
}

class Sub extends Super {
    public void method(double d) {
        System.out.println("method(double): " + d);
    }
}

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Sub obj = new Sub();

        // Which method is called for each of these statements, the int or the double version?
        obj.method(10);
        obj.method(3.2);
    }
} 

And lastly the C# version. What do you think - does C# work the C++ or the Java way, or is it the same - or different?

 namespace Example {
    class Super {
        public void method(int i) {
            System.Console.WriteLine("method(int): " + i);
        }
    }

    class Sub : Super {
        public void method(double d) {
            System.Console.WriteLine("method(double): " + d);
        }
    }

    class Program {
        static void Main(string[] args) {
            Sub obj = new Sub();

            // Which method is called for each of these statements, the int or the double version?
            obj.method(10);
            obj.method(3.2);
        }
    }
}