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A comment on Exotic Programming Ideas, Part 3: Effect Systems. Parent comment

Re:Exotic Programming Ideas, Part 3: Effect Systems by skybrian on Sunday November 22, 2020 @05:17PM (#25181642)
Introducing generic types doesn't make the function-coloring problem go away.

Now, instead of having a single function that has some effects, you have a family of closely-related functions, each with different effects. These functions are incompatible with each other. The function-coloring problem has gotten worse! :)

(Generic types are still useful though.)

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Re:Exotic Programming Ideas, Part 3: Effect Systems by lalaithion on Monday November 23, 2020 @12:48PM (#25189422)
No, it doesn't make it go away, but it makes the "function coloring problem" about as much a problem as the "colors" of functions as determined by their return types. You can't pass a `func () string` to an api accepting a `func () int`.
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