On 2003-11-24T11:10:49-0500, Dan Sugalski wrote: > And yes, you could instantiate type-specific versions, but then you > have issues with mixed-type lists or code-size issues. Neither kind of issues come up in Haskell or ML: mixed-type lists can be treated as non-mixed-type lists where the type is existential or a discriminated union; the same code only needs to be type-checked, compiled, and stored once to be applied at runtime to a potentially infinite set of types. > The *whole* program wouldn't be ignorant of the fact that the list was a > list of card objects or experimental victims^W^Wfreshman volunteers, say, > but the shuffling code could be entirely ignorant of the types of the > things in the list. Absolutely. Ken -- Edit this signature at http://www.digitas.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/ken/sig Sexy types in action: http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~ccshan/cs252/usage.pdf new journal Physical Biology: http://sansom.biop.ox.ac.uk/images/physbio.gif What if All Chemists Went on Strike? (science fiction): http://www.iupac.org/publications/ci/2003/2506/iw3_letters.html
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature