Re: [stack] syntax preference question

John Nowak <[email protected]> wrote:
> William Tanksley, Jr wrote:
>> Keep in mind that these "cleave combinators" are not actually
>> combinators in this little language... They're part of the language's
>> syntax. As such, it might possibly _not_ be a bad idea to make them
>> participate in the typesystem.

> Say I write this definition for a combining form:
>    foo(a, b) = [a, b]
> If cleave is type-directed, there's no way to give this a type. You'd
> need to require an annotation in such a case.

I don't get it. Can you provide a specific counterexample where this
doesn't receive a type? It seems to me that there are two
possibilities:

1. The types of a and b are the same and are inferable. No problem.
2. The types of a and b differ or are not inferable. Print an error.

...but I know nothing of type inference. I'm clearly missing everything.

> - John

-Wm