4 ms·

IMO one of the most useful features of FP languages is type inference. I'm not sure you can cherry-pick that.

• seanmcdirmid 13y ago
  Type inference is not an exclusive feature of FP languages, though there is no known system that can deal well with nominal subtyping (scala makes a good go at it, but only locally).
  • judk 13y ago
    What would you say is the usefulness and value of local inference vs global inference? In my experience, local inference eliminates a lot of boilerplate and clutter, while global inference isn't so important, because writing types is good documentation as you zoom out from the details of functions.
    • _random_ 13y ago
      It also emphasizes the importance of good tooling support: when using global inference it would be cool to always show the inferred types as a little semi-transparent text on the top...
    • seanmcdirmid 13y ago
      Global type inference is the ultimate goal, local type inference is the compromise. Global type inference would generate documentation automatically, to some extent.