I don't want it to coerce Ints to Strings. Far from that. What I do want is to be able to implement a generic datastructure for objects of type 'a, where 'a is any type and then be able to write functions/methods that take this structure with any type of objects and another that only takes structures of Ints. I want to be able to write a function that takes a list of 'a, a function of type 'a -> 'b and returns a list of 'b.

What I end up doing is either having to "reimplement" this very same function for each list type or implement one that takes a list of void pointers (sorry, objects), a function that accepts a void pointer and returns a void pointer and produce a list of void pointers. Which I will then typecast to whatever I think I've received. Either suffers the safety or the convenience. And why? Just because the excuse for a type system of Java/C# doesn't undestand the concept of type variables. Polymorphism? My foot, they don't even understand what does that mean!

Jenda
We'd like to help you learn to help yourself
Look around you, all you see are sympathetic eyes
Stroll around the grounds until you feel at home
   -- P. Simon in Mrs. Robinson

In reply to Re^4: Static typing is mostly a waste of time by Jenda
in thread Static typing is mostly a waste of time by johnnywang

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