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by eru 2095 days ago
> I'm not saying this is necessarily a very bad thing, nor do I have strong opinions on the usefulness of strict parametricity (which AFAIK Haskell doesn't have either). But in discussions relevant to parametricity, it's useful to know the ways a given language can subvert it (and Rust will further encourage it to be subverted, once the specialization feature is developed).

In practice Haskell seems to have pretty strong views on enforcing parametric polymorphism, doesn't it?

Haskell gives you ad-hoc polymorphism via typeclasses and there are also existential types and GADTs etc, if you need those. But once you declare something to abide by parametric polymorphism, you are expected to keep your end of the bargain.

(Yes, you could violate the pact via some unsafePerformIO trickery, but that's considered bad form.)