| > Rather I mean `coercible'. For example an expression of type Integer
| > is coercible to Float because Float exports the following function
| >
| > coerce : Integer -> %
|
| That is exactly what Aldor does *not* do. It never applies "coerce" if one
| doesn't explicitly call for it. At the moment I find Aldor much better in this
| respect. You should consider that some people might implement a function that
| is not a nice "coerce" (although their function carries this name).
I don't think there is anything we can do about that. We can't police
people that name coerce a function that does pretend. Sometimes that is
bad, sometimes that is good.
I've stated my concerns. What else can I do?
I was happy that automatic coercion went away when I switched from Axiom
to Aldor. I don't want to go back.
Yet another reason against auto coercion.
There might be a situation when coerce: A->B is needed and none is in
scope but there were coercions available such that A->X->B or A->Y->B.
We all want that both compositions yield the same result. Now let's
suppose we enforce that (at least in the documentation). There is still
the issue of efficiency. The path over X might be more costly than the
path over Y. Which one does the compiler choose and how can you see that
from the source code?
I like this extra bit of redundancy in the code. It is good for people
who are not the authors. (And it probably makes compilation faster.)
Ralf
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