[kragen]

just to clarify, i didn't write the article; yossi kreinin did

you seem to be saying that it's impossible to formulate a type system that handles units correctly in contexts like generic linear algebra algorithms

i think you are mistaken about that

[V1ndaar]

I nowhere said impossible! All I say it is tricky and that likely the code you write will have to be adapted in certain cases (compared to current existing implementations of numerical algorithms).

[kragen]

if you have to adapt it in certain cases because of limitations in the type system, from my point of view that amounts to the type system handling units incorrectly

in the same way that pascal's type system handled array sizes 'incorrectly' because you couldn't write a subroutine that could operate on an array of any size, just arrays of one size or another

you could say 'yes, well, the code you write will have to be adapted in certain cases (compared to current existing implementations of string algorithms)', like say if your string has more than 20 characters in it, but the reason is that you're doing something the type system can't handle