[bitc-dev] Opaque (Abstract?) types

[Sandro Magi]

See First-Class Polymorphism with Existential [1] types for an overview of the scoping problems with existentials, and for a useful technique to augment type inference with a mechanism for "automatically opening" existentials, and propagating the required scoping. First-Class Modules for Haskell [2] uses a skolemization technique with a custom "open" syntax to achieve the same. Using existentials without some technique for eliminating the scoping problems is unwieldy.

Sandro

[1] http://research.microsoft.com/users/daan/download/papers/existentials.pdf
[2] http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/FOOL/papers9/shields.pdf

Jonathan S. Shapiro wrote:
> How difficult, conceptually, would it be to introduce existential types?
>
> How much work and complexity does it add to the inference engine?
>
> Is there a syntax that you would recommend?
>
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