To be clear, this is what ML's variant types are all about. You can easily create a list that contains e.g. both ints and chars: let mylist = [`Int 5; `Char

To be clear, this is what ML's variant types are all about. You can easily create a list that contains e.g. both ints and chars: let mylist = [`Int 5; `Char '5'] Technically the elements have the same compile-time type, but the question is, what practical difference does that make? In what cases are variants an inadequate solution?