In my experience, most cases of overloading are trying to achieve one of two things:

* An argument with a default value: foo(string bar), foo(string bar, string baz)

* An argument which can be of two or more types: foo(string bar), foo(byte[] bar)

I believe the first problem is better solved by an optional/default argument language feature (or in a pinch, a sentinel value).

I believe the second problem is better solved by either using a dynamic language, or an expressive type system that lets you say what you mean, either via polymorphism or union types.

For the remaining cases it's probably acceptable to have a second function with a slightly different name.

While we're on the subject: Keyword-specified arguments are a major quality-of-life improvement, especially once you have large signatures with many defaults. I see no reason why all languages shouldn't adopt python-style foo(x, y, abc=123, xyz=456). DoThing(myflag=False) is generally much clearer than DoThing(False).