To make my previous thoughts on ObjectNames a little bit more concrete, here one possible solution: We could split the ObjectName class into 2 parts like this: class NameSpace a where -- Do we need a better name? Not sure... deleteObjectNames:: [a] -> IO () isObjectName :: a -> IO Bool class NameSpace a => ObjectName a where genObjectNames :: Int -> IO [a] All object kinds in OpenGL can be instances of NameSpace, and almost all kinds can be instances of ObjectName, too. Shader objects and sync objects would only be instances of NameSpace, not of ObjectName. They would have creation functions taking additional arguments like: createShader :: ShaderType -> IO Shader fenceSync :: Condition -> [Flags] -> IO Sync It is debatable if Program should be an instance of ObjectName or not: glCreateProgram doesn't need parameters, but it immediately creates a program + a name, not only the name. A separate createProgram function would make this clearer, but I don't have a strong opinion regarding that. One could perhaps make some tricks with MPTC and functional dependencies to unify these creation functions a bit, but I would like to avoid type system extensions. Hints/proposals/rants appreciated, as usual. :-)