What is it?
(Not sure if I should be thinking in the direction of "they're actually not special" or "they're more special than I think!")
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Type classes are just a fancy, built-in way of passing records of functions around implicitly. Alas, they live in a separate language space.
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I'm guessing you are already aware of this though 😉
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I mean nothing too profound -- type classes tie "laws" to type-directed implicit arguments in a way that mystifies the two distinct concepts
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in ML signatures specify an interface -- over both types and values -- and you can associate laws with the signature. much neater imo!
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Tbh part of me regrets not having a sufficiently-strong set of counterarguments ready at the time, against the push for traits in Rust.
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Tbh I do prefer the 'programming with interface constraints' feeling I get using TCs. I would prefer traditional TCs over ML modules…
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Interesting. I really prefer the "module as set of operations & laws over types" stance when working. Don't mind naming instances at all.
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But again, I'm the guy who thinks environment capture is too much magic to include as a feature :P
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Yep, Rust didn't have env capture at first (nor overloading, nor _shadowing_)
Ambiguity is my least-favourite thing in PL. Even minor bits.
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You mean env capture for closures? Did you have something like C++'s explicit captures? Or did you have to pass by param?
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