Also, generic functions in Common Lisp don't suffer from nearly the same amount of complexity as can be found in C++: there is always only one signature (lambda-list) for any function name, whether generic or not, there are no implicit conversions, no memory-allocation details, value/pointer/reference distinction, constness, virtualness, overloading of assignment operators etc.

I was under the impression that the function signature was not the issue raised... but the fact that the same function name could lead to completely different behaviors depending on a context. In the case of generic functions, the specific function implementation is usually (ignoring some of the other matching features) determined by the input types. The input types define the context.

All that said, I realize now that this might be less of a problem in CL if you just group your defmethods in the same area. If the problem is grepping for the definition, it is easy enough to rearrange things so that the related functions are in a close-enough place. In C++, the classes try to own their methods -- with the exception of warily-regarded "friend" methods.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/Groups/AI/html/hyperspec/HyperSpec/Bod...

Though grep would probably do just fine too, since method definitions are defined with 'defmethod' instead of 'defun', so you can see at a glance whether something is generic or not.

Package is essentially a collection that maps symbols to values. In CL packages have (at least) two namespaces: one for functions, other for any kind of variables. The reason for this is that when you write the form

    (fun #'a b)