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Type Inference in Graphical Dataflow

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Thanks for posting this! Cool seeing type inference done in the context of flow-based programming. The 'type only terminals' in LabView are really interesting to me. I've been thinking about how types form some kind of 'graph' over the top of programs, eg:

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· Oct 30, 2019

Replying to @brendanzab and @typeswitch

Something weird

Note how the polymorphic identity function is taking in a type-only terminal as input, and that changes what the input and output terminals can expect to be wired to.

I see. I would caution that type-only terminals are effectively a type annotation, the equivalent of writing id<Type> instead of id. The more you require them, the more potentially redundant information on the diagram, which is one thing type inference is meant to solve.

Still, if the flow of types on the diagram can be shown *without* the user having to construct them manually, then I think that's a pretty neat idea 🙂

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