Typed car and cdr for generic programming

Matthew Roberts
Macquarie University

Results relating the pattern calculus to the constructor calculus have
shown how statically typed generic programming can be achieved with
lisp-like primitive operations. We demonstrate how a small extension
to existing functional languages can incorporate this capability and
we show how to keep it safe with static typing. We will briefly
summarise one system that gives safe but overly general types and then
describe in detail a novel one that gives tighter types to the
functions in question.