Re: [q-lang-users] H/M-based typing for Q

[Albert G. <Dr....@t-...>]

John Cowan wrote:
> I would never want to see Q put into the Hindley-Milner straitjacket.
> H/M type inference makes sense if you are going to do static typing
> anyway, but things like monomorphic lists are IMHO completely against
> the spirit of Q.

Yes sure, that's why Nathan's system is much more flexible than basic
H/M. See http://www.cse.ucsc.edu/~nwhitehe/qt.html

Don't worry, nobody wants to put on the concrete shoes of H/M over here.
;-) Q's dynamic typing is one of its distinguishing features and I
certainly want it to stay that way. If someone wants something like
Haskell he knows where to find it.

However, it could be useful to have a tool which tries to infer as much
typing information from a Q program as possible. That information could
be used in a native code compiler, or to give warnings about possible
typing errors in a script. Or we could have a separate program (kind of
"lint" for Q) which does that job.

Cheers,
Albert

-- 
Dr. Albert Gr"af
Dept. of Music-Informatics, University of Mainz, Germany
Email:  Dr....@t-..., ag...@mu...
WWW:    http://www.musikinformatik.uni-mainz.de/ag