Yes, this is exactly what I was getting at. One ends up needing an explicit `toList` helper function that converts a non-empty list into a plain list. Pattern

Yes, this is exactly what I was getting at. One ends up needing an explicit `toList` helper function that converts a non-empty list into a plain list. Pattern matching on a non-empty list is also inelegant, because it is implemented as a tuple, which creates a leaky abstraction.