[Caml-list] Higher-kinded bounded polymorphism

[Oleg <oleg@okmij.org>]

Abstraction over polymorphic types is something that one comes across
from time to time, especially when implementing operations generic
over collections, or embedding typed DSLs (particularly in
tagless-final style). One immediately learns that OCaml does not have
higher-kinded type variables (type variables that range over type
constructors like list and array); does not permit type constructors
appearing by themselves, without being applied to the right number of
arguments; and restricts polymorphic types in other ways (e.g., not
allowing them in type constraints of package types). One soon learns
that the module system (using functors) is a way to realize
higher-kinded polymorphism in OCaml. It takes longer to learn it is
not the only way, however.

The following web page is written to speed up this learning. It
collects what I have learned and rediscovered on this topic, arranged
into a single story and with new explanations and attributions (and
occasionally, new variations).

        http://okmij.org/ftp/ML/higher-kind-poly.html

One interesting discovery is that some problems that ostensibly
require higher-kinded polymorphism really do not.

The article comes with the complete accompanying code.