A quick look at impredicativity
Alejandro Serrano, Jurriaan Hage, Simon Peyton Jones, Dimitrios Vytiniotis
Abstract
Type inference for parametric polymorphism is wildly successful, but has always suffered from an embarrassing flaw: polymorphic types are themselves not first class. We present Quick Look, a practical, implemented, and deployable design for impredicative type inference. To demonstrate our claims, we have modified GHC, a production-quality Haskell compiler, to support impredicativity. The changes required are modest, localised, and are fully compatible with GHC's myriad other type system extensions.
Topics & Concepts
HaskellComputer scienceProgramming languageType inferenceCompilerInferenceType (biology)Class (philosophy)Functional programmingArtificial intelligenceEcologyBiologyLogic, programming, and type systemsSoftware Engineering ResearchAdvanced Database Systems and Queries