Applications and libraries/Generic programming/Template
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Contents |
1 Approach: The name of the approach
2 Required features/Portability
What do features do we need?
What compilers support these features?</li>
3 Expressibility
What kind of generic functions can we write?</li>
Can we do producer and consumer functions?</li>
Does it support generic functions with different arities?</li>
What about local redefinitions?</li>
4 Subset of data types covered
What is the family of data types supported?</li>
Here is a list provided by Stephanie:
records nested datatypes higher-kinded types (what kinds?) datatypes with existential components (both of kind type and higher kinds) datatypes with first-class polymorphic components (both of kind type and higher kinds) above with class constraints GADTs (simple, and those that subsume existentials...) datatypes with higher-kinded type arguments
5 Usage
How to use the library?
What different kinds of users do we have?
Stephanie Weirich gave a good description of possible users of the library. Here is that description (slightly modified):
A Generic library has several important components: the "framework" or way of representing a particular type, instances of this framework for the primitive types, helper functions for creating instances for new types, and a base set of generic operations/support code to get things started. The "Library writer" is responsible for all of these.
A user of the generic library may want to do two things:
(a) define new type-indexed functions (b) ensure that their datatypes can be used with type-indexed functions
In Bruno's terminology,
- Power User: does both of these - User: does (b) but not (a) - End User: does neither, just calls existing type-indexed functions on existing datatypes.
Note that we could imagine eliminating/automating (b) for some platforms with Template Haskell or an external tool like DrIFT.
6 Error Messages
what are the kind of type- error messages you get when you make a mistake in your generic function?</li>
7 Amount of work per data type (Boilerplate)
What do we need to do each time we add a new datatype?</li>
8 Extensibility
Is the approach extensible, if not can we do anything about it?</li>
9 Reasoning
How easy is to reason about generic functions with this approach?</li>
10 Performance considerations
what are the performance impacts, is it possible to improve?</li>
11 Helpful extra features
What features could Haskell have that would make the approach easier to use?</li>
Are those features realistically feasible?</li>
12 Discussion
Overall discussion
