Re: [Caml-list] Is a Cow an Animal?

[Jacques Garrigue <garrigue@kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp>]

From: Pixel <pixel@mandrakesoft.com>

> * one pb was:
> 
> let is_meat_ = function
>   | `Beef | `Dead_rabbit | `Dead_human -> true
>   | _ -> false
> 
> which type "[> `Beef | `Dead_rabbit | `Dead_human] -> bool" doesn't allow 
>   is_meat_ (food : [`Grass])

This is to avoid _too_ weak typings, which would allow for bad typos.
The more direct solution is
  let is_meat_ = function
    | #meat_kind -> true
    | #vegetable_kind -> false

> * I still can't manage to have:
> 
>  new_human : int -> ([ `Dead_human], [< food_kind]) animal
> all i got is
>  new_human : int -> ([ `Dead_human], _[< food_kind]) animal

Classical solution is eta-expansion
  let new_human n : ([`Dead_human],  [< food_kind ]) animal =
    new animal `Human  `Dead_human n
should work.

Basically, for closed world problems polymorphic variants work
generally better than object encodings. If you want it open world,
this gets more subtle.

Jacques Garrigue
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