Description

Generic programming has become a popular technique for reducing code and simplifying programs. There are many libraries for Haskell programmers that offer different approaches to generic programming. This talk introduces one such library, Extensible and Modular Generics for the Masses (EMGM), that was uploaded to Hackage for the first time in September 2008. EMGM uses type classes to provide a sum-of-products representation of datatypes. Not quite as well-known as its cousin, Scrap Your Boilerplate, EMGM also provides a wealth of generic functions. Additionally, EMGM allows programmers to easily write their own generic functions and specialize any function for arbitrary datatypes. In this talk, we look at the building blocks of EMGM, at various generic functions provided by the library, how do define one’s own generic function, and at some potential uses.

Sean Leather is a PhD student at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. His research focuses on exploring libraries for generic programming in Haskell.