method overloading=early binding method overriding =late binding

Late Binding: type is unknown until the variable is exercised during run-time; usually through assignment but there are other means to coerce a type; dynamically typed languages call this an underlying feature, but many statically typed languages have some method of achieving late binding Implemented often using [special] dynamic types, introspection/reflection, flags and compiler options, or through virtual methods by borrowing and extending dynamic dispatch Early Binding: type is known before the variable is exercised during run-time, usually through a static, declarative means Implemented often using standard primitive types

Early binding means that our code directly interacts with the object, by directly calling its methods. Since the compiler knows the object's data type ahead of time, it can directly compile code to invoke the methods on the object. Early binding also allows the IDE to use IntelliSense to aid our development efforts; it allows the compiler to ensure that we are referencing methods that do exist and that we are providing the proper parameter values.

Late binding means that our code interacts with an object dynamically at run-time. This provides a great deal of flexibility since our code literally doesn't care what type of object it is interacting with as long as the object supports the methods we want to call. Because the type of the object isn't known by the IDE or compiler, neither IntelliSense nor compile-time syntax checking is possible but we get unprecedented flexibility in exchange.