Questions tagged [polymorphisms]
The polymorphisms tag has no usage guidance.
24
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Are type variables really only used in mathematical conversation about types?
Are type variables really only used in mathematical conversation about types? i.e. are type variables (meta-variables that only contain the type classification label) only exist in proofs for types ...
0
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1answer
56 views
What is the difference between $ \alpha \to \alpha $ vs $ \forall \alpha. \alpha \to \alpha$?
I was studying polymorphic types and I was finding the distinction with monomorphic types difficult to pin down (context CS 421). From the course I linked the have the following (vague attempt) at a ...
5
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1answer
71 views
What does $ \forall \alpha_1, \dots , \alpha_n . \tau $ mean formally as a type?
I was learning about polymorphic types but I couldn't understand the notation, can someone explain it means (context cs421 UIUC):
$$ \forall \alpha_1, \dots , \alpha_n . \tau $$
its supposed to be a ...
0
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0answers
17 views
Do Rank-1 (prenex) polymorphism and Predicative polymorphism mean the same?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parametric_polymorphism says:
Rank-1 (prenex) polymorphism
In a prenex polymorphic system, type variables may not be instantiated with polymorphic types.[4] ...
1
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0answers
18 views
What are the relation and differences between reification and type passing semantics?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_erasure says
type erasure refers to the load-time process by which explicit type annotations are removed from a program, before it is executed at run-time. ...
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What are the relations between these two descriptions of let polymorphism?
In Types and Programming Languages by Pierce, there are two descriptions of let-polymorphism.
Sec23.8 Fragments of SystemF on p359 says
This has led to various proposals for restricted fragments ...
0
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1answer
44 views
How can an existential type be defined in terms of universal type?
In Types and Programming Languages by Pierce, how does the following achieve the definition of an existential type in terms of universal type, by polymorphic version of Church encoding of pairs?
...
0
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1answer
57 views
Why are ADT packages opened immediately after they are built, while existential objects opened as late as possible?
Section 24.2 in Types and Programming Languages by Pierce defines ADTs in existential types:
A conventional abstract data type (or ADT) consists of (1) a type name A, (2) a concrete representation ...
0
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1answer
58 views
How can mainstream OO languages support strong binary operations by classes?
Section 24.2 in Types and Programming Languages by Pierce compares ADT and existential objects,in terms of how well they support strong binary operations:
Other binary operations cannot be ...
0
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1answer
38 views
Are type abstraction values and universal types not for non functions, but only for functions?
In Types and Programming Languages by Pierce, Chapter 23 Universal Types has a summary of System F in the following figure, in particular, "type abstraction values" and their types "universal types".
...
0
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1answer
36 views
How does this allow list operations to be applied to lists with elements of any type?
In Types and Programming Languages by Pierce, Chapter 11 is simple extensions of the simply typed lambda calculus with any simple base types. Section 11.12 introduces Lists.
How does the section ...
1
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1answer
22 views
What does it mean that a let-binding can be treated polymorphically, only if its right-hand side is a syntactic value?
Types and Programming Languages by Pierce says:
22.7 Let polymorphism
A final point worth mentioning is that, in designing full-blown
programming languages with let-polymorphism, we need to ...
0
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1answer
25 views
What is the purpose of erasing a type application to a term-application in parametric polymorphism?
From Types and Programming Languages by Pierce
23 Polymorphism
23.7 Erasure and Evaluation Order
in a full-blown programming language, which may include side-
effecting features such as ...
1
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0answers
51 views
Is it possible to write a fully-decidable type system for the J language?
I'm experimenting with the J array language, a dynamically-typed array language with mutable assignment, subtyping, and function overloading (just like traditional APL).
It is unclear to me whether ...
5
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3answers
84 views
How exactly do we define parametric polymorphism?
My naive distinction between parametric polymorphism and ad-hoc polymorphism, is that:
In parametric polymorphism, the type is given as a variable: (pseudocode)
Function f: <.Type T> T $\to$...
5
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0answers
71 views
Which languages, if any, implemented parametric polymorphism before ML?
In particular, was there any kind of implementation at the time Christopher Strachey wrote Fundamental Concepts in Programming Languages?
In that work, Strachey lists Ad Hoc and Parametric ...
6
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1answer
144 views
Relationship between Higher Kinded Polymorphism, type inference, and Currying
On Hacker News there is an interesting exchange about the async\await RFC for Rust.
The author of the proposal withoutboats is responding to a comment about the ...
2
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1answer
102 views
How to implement polymorphism in a turing complete environment?
I'm currently programming in an unnamed turing complete language which has support for pointers, primitive data types, structures, closures, and garbage collection, among other things.
I'm trying to ...
6
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3answers
996 views
Is subtype polymorphism a kind of ad hoc polymorphism?
"Ad-hoc polymorphism is obtained when a function works, or appears to work, on several different types (which may not exhibit a common structure) and may behave in unrelated ways for each type." – ...
4
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1answer
80 views
What's the advantage of “value restriction” over its alternatives?
What is the motivation to pick "value restriction" over other candidates?
Examples of alternatives:
Enclosing pureness into the function type, for example:
...
7
votes
2answers
650 views
Higher-ranked polymorphism without explicit application or subtyping?
So, I'm familiar with two main strategies of having higher-ranked polymorphism in a language:
System-F style polymorphism, where functions are explicitly typed, and instantiation happens explicitly ...
0
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2answers
161 views
Can String be a subtype of Character in a programming language?
Could a programming language be designed so that there is an inheritance relationship between string and character (both of ...
3
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1answer
177 views
how type checking fails?
I was doing a type checking example in system f sub on paper to understand how it works.
according to Pierce's book Types and Programming Languages, numbers and their types are following in system f ...
1
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1answer
48 views
Can a $k$-ary relation have polymorphisms of arity greater than $k$?
To quote Hubie Chen's A Rendezvous of Logic, Complexity, and Algebra (2009) on constraint satisfaction and complexity,
An operation $f : D^m \to D$ is a polymorphism of a relation $R \subseteq D^k$
...
