This reminds me...can we do newtype GADTs in certain situations as a stepping 
stone? I would think that would be purely easier — more nominal, no nice 
projections but only `case` and skolems which cannot escape.Newtype GADTs we're 
long deemed impossible IIRC, but surely the paper demonstrates that at least 
some cases should work? ---- On Thu, 02 Sep 2021 14:10:34 -0400  
rpglove...@gmail.com  wrote ----Oh, I see. That's because this would need to 
introduce `pack ... as ...` and `open ...` into the core term language, 
right?My sense is that it shouldn't negatively affect runtime performance of 
programs without existentials even if implemented naively; does that seem 
accurate? Not that implementing it, even naively, is a small task. On Thu, Sep 
2, 2021 at 1:44 PM Simon Peyton Jones <simo...@microsoft.com> wrote:








Of course not. The same was true for QuickLook, though, wasn't it?
No, not at all.   QuickLook required zero changes to GHC’s intermediate 
language – it impacted only the type inference system.   Adding existentials 
will entail a substantial change to the intermediate
 language, affecting every optimisation pass.
 
Simon
 



From: Alex Rozenshteyn <rpglove...@gmail.com>

Sent: 02 September 2021 18:13
To: Simon Peyton Jones <simo...@microsoft.com>
Cc: GHC developers <ghc-devs@haskell.org>
Subject: Re: New implementation for `ImpredicativeTypes`


 



So it’s not just a question of saying “just add that paper to GHC and voila job 
done”. 



 



Of course not. The same was true for QuickLook, though, wasn't it?



 



On Thu, Sep 2, 2021 at 12:42 PM Simon Peyton Jones <simo...@microsoft.com> 
wrote:





If I understand correctly, the recent ICFP paper "An
 Existential Crisis Resolved" finally enables this; is that right?
It describes one way to include existentials in GHC’s intermediate language, 
which is a real contribution.
But it is not a small change.  So it’s not just a question of saying “just add 
that paper to GHC and voila job done”.
 
Simon
 



From: Alex Rozenshteyn <rpglove...@gmail.com>

Sent: 02 September 2021 17:10
To: Simon Peyton Jones <simo...@microsoft.com>
Cc: GHC developers <ghc-devs@haskell.org>
Subject: Re: New implementation for `ImpredicativeTypes`


 

If I understand correctly, the recent ICFP paper "An
 Existential Crisis Resolved" finally enables this; is that right?

 


On Mon, Sep 9, 2019 at 12:00 PM Simon Peyton Jones <simo...@microsoft.com> 
wrote:





Suppose Haskell did have existentials;
 
Yes, I think that’s an interesting thing to work on!  I’m not sure what the 
implications would be.  At very least we’d need to extend System FC (GHC’s 
intermediate language) with
 existential types and the corresponding pack and unpack syntactic forms.
 
I don’t know of any work studying that question specifically, but others may 
have pointers.
 
simon
 



From: Alex Rozenshteyn <rpglove...@gmail.com>

Sent: 06 September 2019 15:21
To: Simon Peyton Jones <simo...@microsoft.com>
Cc: Alejandro Serrano Mena <trup...@gmail.com>; GHC developers 
<ghc-devs@haskell.org>
Subject: Re: New implementation for `ImpredicativeTypes`


 


Hi Simon,


 


You're exactly right, of course. My example is confusing, so let me see if I 
can clarify.


 


What I want in the ideal is
map show [1, 'a', "b"]. That is, minimal syntactic overhead to mapping a 
function over multiple values of distinct types that results in a homogeneous 
list. As the reddit thread points out, there are workarounds
 involving TH or wrapping each element in a constructor or using bespoke 
operators, but when it comes down to it, none of them actually allows me to say 
what I
mean; the TH one is closest, but I reach for TH only in times of desperation.


 


I had thought that one of the things preventing this was lack of impredicative 
instantiation, but now I'm not sure. Suppose Haskell
did have existentials; would map show @(exists a. Show a => a) [1, 'a', "b"] 
work in current Haskell and/or in quick-look?


 


Tangentially, do you have a reference for what difficulties arise in adding 
existentials to Haskell? I have a feeling that it would make working with GADTs 
more ergonomic.


 


On Fri, Sep 6, 2019 at 12:33 AM Simon Peyton Jones <simo...@microsoft.com> 
wrote:




I’m confused.   Char does not have the type (forall a. Show a =>a), so our 
example is iill-typed in System F, never mind about type inference.  Perhaps 
there’s a typo?   I think
 you may have ment
               exists a. Show a => a
which doesn’t exist in Haskell.  You can write existentials with a data type
 
data Showable where
   S :: forall a. Show a => a -> Showable
 
Then
               map show [S 1, S ‘a’, S “b”]
works fine today (without our new stuff), provided you say
 
               instance Show Showable where
                 show (S x) = show x
 
Our new system can only type programs that can be written in System F.   (The 
tricky bit is inferring the impredicative instantiations.)
 
Simon
 



From: ghc-devs <ghc-devs-boun...@haskell.org>
On Behalf Of Alex Rozenshteyn
Sent: 06 September 2019 03:31
To: Alejandro Serrano Mena <trup...@gmail.com>
Cc: GHC developers <ghc-devs@haskell.org>
Subject: Re: New implementation for `ImpredicativeTypes`


 


I didn't say anything when you were requesting use cases, so I have no right to 
complain, but I'm still a little disappointed that this doesn't fix my 
(admittedly very minor) issue:

https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/3am0qa/existentials_and_the_heterogenous_list_fallacy/csdwlp2/?context=8&depth=9


 


For those who don't want to click on the reddit link: I would like to be able 
to write something like map show ([1, 'a', "b"] :: [forall a. Show a
 => a]), and have it work.


 


On Wed, Sep 4, 2019 at 8:13 AM Alejandro Serrano Mena <trup...@gmail.com> wrote:




Hi all,


As I mentioned some time ago, we have been busy working on a new implementation 
of `ImpredicativeTypes` for GHC. I am very thankful to everybody who back then 
sent us examples of impredicativity
 which would be nice to support, as far as we know this branch supports all of 
them! :)


 


If you want to try it, at

https://gitlab.haskell.org/trupill/ghc/commit/a3f95a0fe0f647702fd7225fa719a8062a4cc0a5/pipelines?ref=quick-look-build
 you can find the result of the pipeline, which includes builds for several 
platforms (click on the "Artifacts" button, the one which looks
 like a cloud, to get them). The code is being developed at 
https://gitlab.haskell.org/trupill/ghc.


 


Any code should run *unchanged* except for some eta-expansion required for some 
specific usage patterns of higher-rank types. Please don't hesitate to ask any 
questions or clarifications
 about it. A merge request for tracking this can be found at 
https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/merge_requests/1659


 


Kind regards,


Alejandro


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