From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Received: (from weis@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id SAA17936 for caml-red; Mon, 18 Dec 2000 18:34:06 +0100 (MET)
Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id QAA18630 for <caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr>; Mon, 18 Dec 2000 16:23:44 +0100 (MET)
Received: from mrwall.kal.com (mrwall.kal.com [194.193.14.236])
	by concorde.inria.fr (8.11.1/8.10.0) with SMTP id eBIFNgT01146
	for <caml-list@inria.fr>; Mon, 18 Dec 2000 16:23:43 +0100 (MET)
Received: from mrwall.kal.com [194.193.14.236]
	(HELO localhost)
	by mrwall.kal.com (AltaVista Mail V2.0J/2.0J BL25J listener)
	id 0000_0045_3a3e_2c52_a53b;
	Mon, 18 Dec 2000 15:25:06 +0000
Received: from somewhere by smtpxd
Message-ID: <3145774E67D8D111BE6E00C0DF418B66395AEC@nt.kal.com>
From: Dave Berry <dave@kal.com>
To: John Max Skaller <skaller@ozemail.com.au>,
        Mattias Waldau
  <mattias.waldau@tacton.se>
Cc: caml-list@inria.fr
Subject: RE: ROverloading
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 15:27:03 -0000
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.0.1460.8)
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Sender: weis@pauillac.inria.fr

John Max Skaller wrote:

> 	Unfortunately, overloading isn't quite so simple when 
> you've also got type inference:

That depends on how general you try to be.  I'd be quite happy with a system
that allowed multiple definitions of a name, but forced applications to be
monomorphic.  In your example, the definition of f would require a
disambiguating type annotation (or assume a default):

>	let f a b = a + b in
>	let x = f 1.0 2.0 in
>	let y = f 1 2 in 

would become

	let f a b = a + b : int in ...

Theoretically inelegant, but pragmatically sufficient.  As indeed you seem
to be doing in Felix.

I'd use the module system to introduce and control overloading, rather than
trying to extend the core language.  It seems a simpler route.

Dave.