[jesse__]

> "tagged" unions of ADT languages like Haskell are arguably pretty clearly inferior to the "untagged" unions of TypeScript

dude .. wut?? Explain to me exactly how this is true, with a real world example.

From where I stand, untagged unions are useful in an extremely narrow set of circumstances. Tagged unions, on the other hand, are incredibly useful in a wide variety of applications.

[cubefox]

Example: Option<> types. Maybe a function returns an optional string, but then you are able to improve the guarantee such that it always returns a string. With untagged unions you can just change the return type of the function from String|Null to String. No other changes necessary. For the tagged case you would have to change all(!) the call sites, which expect an Option<String>, to instead expect a String. Completely unnecessary for untagged unions.

A similar case applies to function parameters: In case of relaxed parameter requirements, changing a parameter from String to String|Null is trivial, but a change from String to Option<String> would necessitate changing all the call sites.

> From where I stand, untagged unions are useful in an extremely narrow set of circumstances. Tagged unions, on the other hand, are incredibly useful in a wide variety of applications.

Any real world example?

[rastrian]

I think your Option/String example is a real-world tradeoff, but it’s not a slam-dunk “untagged > tagged.”

For API evolution, T | null can be a pragmatic “relax/strengthen contract” knob with less mechanical churn than Option<T> (because many call sites don’t care and just pass values through). That said, it also makes it easier to accidentally reintroduce nullability and harder to enforce handling consistently, the failure mode is “it compiles, but someone forgot the check.”

In practice, once the union has more than “nullable vs present”, people converge to discriminated unions ({ kind: "ok", ... } | { kind: "err", ... }) because the explicit tag buys exhaustiveness and avoids ambiguous narrowing. So I’d frame untagged unions as great for very narrow cases (nullability / simple widening), and tagged/discriminated unions as the reliability default for domain states.

For reliability, I’d rather pay the mechanical churn of Option<T> during API evolution than pay the ongoing risk tax of “nullable everywhere.

My post argues for paying costs that are one-time and compiler-enforced (refactors) vs costs that are ongoing and human-enforced (remembering null checks).

[cubefox]

I believe there is a misunderstanding. The compiler can check untagged unions just as much as it can check tagged unions. I don't think there is any problem with "ambiguous narrowing", or "reliability". There is also no risk of "nullable everywhere": If the type of x is Foo|Null, the compiler forces you to write a null check before you can access x.bar(). If the type of x is Foo, x is not nullable. So you don't have to remember null checks (or checks for other types): the compiler will remember them. There is no difference to tagged unions in this regard.

[rastrian]

I think we mostly agree for the nullable case in a sound-enough type system: if Foo | null is tracked precisely and the compiler forces a check before x.bar, then yes, you’re not “remembering” checks manually, the compiler is.

Two places where I still see tagged/discriminated unions win in practice:

1. Scaling beyond nullability. Once the union has multiple variants with overlapping structure, “untagged” narrowing becomes either ambiguous or ends up reintroducing an implicit tag anyway (some sentinel field / predicate ladder). An explicit tag gives stable, intention-revealing narrowing + exhaustiveness.

2. Boundary reality. In languages like TypeScript (even with strictNullChecks), unions are routinely weakened by any, assertions, JSON boundaries, or library types. Tagged unions make the “which case is this?” explicit at the value level, so the invariant survives serialization/deserialization and cross-module boundaries more reliably.

So I’d summarize it as: T | null is a great ergonomic tool for one axis (presence/absence) when the type system is enforced end-to-end. For domain states, I still prefer explicit tags because they keep exhaustiveness and intent robust as the system grows.

If you’re thinking Scala 3 / a sound type system end-to-end, your point is stronger; my caution is mostly from TS-in-the-wild + messy boundaries.

[cubefox]

I think the real promise of "set-theoretic type systems" comes when don't just have (untagged) unions, but also intersections (Foo & Bar) and complements/negations (!Foo). Currently there is no such language with negations, but once you have them, the type system is "functionally complete", and you can represent arbitrary Boolean combination of types. E.g. "Foo | (Bar & !Baz)". Which sounds pretty powerful, although the practical use is not yet quite clear.

[jesse__]

> For the tagged case you would have to change all(!) the call sites

Yeah, that's exactly why I want a tagged union; so when I make a change, the compiler tells me where I need to go to do updates to my system, instead of manually hunting around for all the sites.

---

The only time an untagged union is appropriate is when the tag accounts for an appreciable amount of memory in a system that churns through a shit-ton of data, and has a soft or hard realtime performance constraint. Other than that, there's just no reason to not use a tagged union, except "I'm lazy and don't want to", which, sometimes, is also a valid reason. But it'll probably come back to bite you, if it stays in there too long.

[cubefox]

> > For the tagged case you would have to change all(!) the call sites

> Yeah, that's exactly why I want a tagged union; so when I make a change, the compiler tells me where I need to go to do updates to my system, instead of manually hunting around for all the sites.

You don't have to do anything manually. There is nothing to do. Changing the return type of a function from String|Null to String is completely safe, the compiler knows that, so you don't have to do any "manual hunting" at call sites.

[jesse__]

The String|null example is just a nullable type; it's not an interesting use of unions either way. The conversation starts when it's Foo|Bar|Baz

I'm unfamiliar with typescript, so in that language I don't have an opinion either way, but in C, you pretty much always want the tag

[cubefox]

C doesn't support any untagged unions (or intersections) in the modern sense. In a set-theoretic type system, if you want to call a method of Foo, and the type of your variable is Foo|Bar|Baz, you have to do a type check for Bar and Baz first, otherwise the compiler won't compile.

[jesse__]

Okay .. so, riddle me this Batman.

If I have an untagged union in <language_of_your_choice>, and I'm iterating over an array of elements of type `Foo|Bar|Baz`, and I have to do a dynamic cast before accessing the element (runtime typecheck) .. I believe that must actually be a tagged union under the hood, whether or not you call it a tagged union or not... right? ie. How would the program possibly know at runtime what the type of a heterogeneous set of elements is without a tag value to tell it?

[jadsfwasdfsd]

> but in C, you pretty much always want the tag

We aren't discussing unions in memory layout, but in type systems. This also clearly indicates you aren't qualified for this discussion.

[jesse__]

I believe that, by the description provided, most languages that you're talking about must actually represent 'untagged unions' as tagged unions under the hood. See my sibling comment. I'm curious

[cubefox]

To be fair, even Wikipedia talks about "untagged unions" only in the context of C. The terminology is confusing and the literature often out of date.