RE: [Caml-list] Generics?

["Dave Berry" <Dave@kal.com>]

In the broader community, "generics" also refers to parameterised
classes or modules.  Examples include ML's functors, C++ class
templates, and parameterised classes in Eiffel, OCaml, and others.
There are some papers comparing the power and expressiveness of
inheritance vs genericity (I think Bertrand Meyer wrote one of these).

Chris's concern's are largely addressed by functors, given suitable
optimisations in the implementation.  Overloading can also help.

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Rogoff [mailto:bpr@best.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2001 19:14
To: Chris Hecker
Cc: caml-list@inria.fr
Subject: [Caml-list] Generics?


On Mon, 2 Apr 2001, Chris Hecker wrote:
> I find OCaml pretty wordy as it is (no overloading being a big problem
> here, since the types all float into the names, as someone said), and
> making it moreso seems to me to be a mistake.  I also feel (like
> Patrick) that there are more important things (overloading, module
> recursion, generics) that need fixing than labeling right now.

I'm confused by your use of the term "generics", which I've seen in
another of your posts as well. Care to explain to the uninitiated? 

FYI, "generic polymorphism" is being used as a term to describe the kind
of overloading formerly called "extensional polymorphism", and that was 
probably influenced by CLOS/Dylan style generic functions with multiple 
dispatch. So generics are already overloaded enough, maybe you need to 
disambiguate :-). 

I don't find Ocaml wordy at all, but then I've used (and liked) Ada so 
it's probably just whatever you're used to...
 
-- Brian


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