Once we have an S3 object, we will need to create functions to work with it. These are really what makes working with the objects easy in the long run. It is in these functions that we can abstract away the processing of the data in the objects and reduce the work we are doing each time we use them. R's object system is based on generic functions. These are grouped functions with the same base name, but a class-specific name extension. Each group is called a method and R will decide which of the particular functions belonging to a method will be called based on the class of the object the method is called on. This means we can call plot() on objects of class A and get a completely different sort of figure than if we called it on an object of class B. In this recipe, we'll have a look at how that works.