Re: [Caml-list] Polymorphic Variants and Number Parameterized Typ es

["Krishnaswami, Neel" <neelk@cswcasa.com>]

John Max Skaller [mailto:skaller@ozemail.com.au] wrote:
> 
> 
> Hmmm... beginnners question on module system .. can you recurse on it?
> I'm guessing not, since there are neither specialisations nor 
> overloading, there's be no way to stop the recursion. ..??

There's no recursion in the module system because that would break
the termination guarantee. If you think of modules as records, and
functors as lambda abstractions, you can see that the module system
defines a simply-typed lambda calculus. As you've noticed with C++, 
adding recursion to it would mean you can write nonterminating module
expressions. (All this is wonderfully clearly explained in the paper, 
"A modular  module system".)

I can see why having guaranteed termination is nice, though I do
really miss having recursive modules. There are a lot of problems
that decompose more nicely if you have cross-module recursion. 

--
Neel Krishnaswami
neelk@cswcasa.com
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