forall in constraint

[Alan & Kim Zimmerman]

In Shayan's implementation he has [1]

data ImplicitBndrs x thing
  = IB
      (XIB x thing)
      thing

  | NewImplicitBndrs
      (XNewImplicitBndrs x thing)

type family XIB               x thing
type family XNewImplicitBndrs x thing

type ForallXImplicitBndrs c x thing =
       ( c (XIB               x thing)
       , c (XNewImplicitBndrs x thing)
       )

This gets used, in the same file as

type LSigType   x = ImplicitBndrs x (LType x)

where `thing` is resolved to a specific type.

Because it is all in the same file, there is no problem making a
constraint on anything using LSigType, that mentions LHsType.



But in the approach I am taking[2], the type families are defined in
HsExtension, which is compiled early in the cycle, and imported by
HsTypes, HsBinds, HsDecl etc.

In order to derive a Data instance for anything using `LSigType x`, we
need to be able to specify that a Data instance exists for `LHsType x`.

So we can either do that directly in HsBinds, or try to add it to the
existing
DataId constraint in HsExtension.

The first approach leads to a spread of the constraint throughout the AST,
which gets very messy.

The second approach requires being able to specify a
`forall thing. Data thing` constraint in HsExtension.


I tried an intermediate approach, introducing a constraint in HsDecls[3] to
capture this,
but it eventually runs into needing it in the HsExpr.hs-boot file, which
means I need
LHsType in that file.

Perhaps the simplest way forward is to get rid of the `thing` parameter
completely,
and introduce the three or so ImplicitBinders variants that are used.

I hope this does not just confuse things even more.

Alan

[1]
https://github.com/ghc/ghc/blob/wip/GrowableAST/compiler/hsSyn/AST.hs#L475
[2] https://github.com/ghc/ghc/tree/wip/ttg/2017-10-21
[3]
https://github.com/ghc/ghc/commit/22812296818fe955752fa4762cf72250abd09bf9#diff-7cfa6eef12e44d312aca9ef4af0081b3R1439



On 23 October 2017 at 23:04, Simon Peyton Jones <simonpj at microsoft.com>
wrote:

> I’m lost. Could you give me a bit more context?
>
>
>
> I’m deeply suspicious about that ForallXImplicitBndrs thing with strange
> higher kinded parameters.   Smells all wrong to me.
>
>
>
> Simon
>
>
>
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