Re: [Haskell-cafe] Generics Versus Parametric Polymorphism

mark.spezzano:

Hi,

Just wondering if Generics and Parametric polymorphism are one and the same in Haskell.

I read (somewhere!) an article stating that generics might be included in Haskell Prime but I thought that they’re already included as parametric polymorphism.

Did I misread something? Or is generics in Haskell referring to something completely different.

Parametric polymorphism is kinda boring in Haskell -- since it's been there since the beginning. We tend to reserve the term "generics" for higher order, and fancier, polymorphism. These kinds of things: http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/pkg-list.html#cat:generics -- Don