[plt-scheme] Re: Re: Typed Scheme

On 5/27/07, Matthew Swank <akopa.gmane.poster at gmail.com> wrote:
> Now that I've thought about this a little more, I am curious as to how
> much type information languages like ML have to carry around at runtime.
> If you use type-casing in a function can the compiler statically resolve
> which case matches at each call site of the function?

ML doesn't use type-casing.  Its pattern matching is based on
constructors within a single known type.  As with many other program
properties, static analysis can detect whether a given case dispatch
(on patterns or anything else) may only use some branches, and if it's
a dispatch in a function call it may optimize by inlining only the
relevant branches.  But this is separate from typechecking, and would
apply equally well to Scheme or ML.

-- 
Carl Eastlund