Excerpt from Polymorphic Type Inference and Semi-Unification<br><br>Most programming languages provide the notion of types as their most fundamental abstraction from the unstructured universe of basic computer structures. Ivhile some languages perform type checking checking for type consistent usage of program objects at run-time lisp, prolog, apl), others do it at compile-time (pascal, Ada, ML, Doing it at compile time has the advantage that type errors, a common form of errors, are detected before the program is run. This usually comes at the price of cumbersome explicit type, variable and other declarations. Recently languages such as ML [32] have been designed that try to combine the safety of compile-time type checking with the flexibility of declaration-less programming by inferring type information from the program rather than insisting on extensive declarations. Ml's type discipline allows for definition and use of (parametric) polymorphic functions; that is, functions that operate uniformly on arguments that may range over a variety of_ types.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.