Junctive and Higher order Types

Hi all,

While trying to convert Haskell statements like this to Perl 6:

  data Cxt = CxtVoid         -- ^ Context that isn't expecting any values
           | CxtItem !Type   -- ^ Context expecting a value of the specified type
           | CxtSlurpy !Type -- ^ Context expecting multiple values of the
                             --     specified type
      deriving (Eq, Show, Ord)

I'd like to be able to write it something like this:

  type Cxt is CxtVoid
            | CxtItem of Type
            | CxtSlurpy of Type
       does (Eq, Show, Ord);

To be a shorthand for:

  type CxtVoid;
  type CxtItem of Type;
  type CxtSlurpy of Type;
  type Perl::Cxt is CxtVoid | CxtItem | CxtSlurpy
     does Eq does Show does Ord;

Is this overloading the 'of' operator too far?

For many there will be a lot of new concepts there.  For a start, I'm assuming that "of" is being used as a higher order type 
definition, much like "Array of Wotsits" would declare.  Also, there is a type there - CxtVoid - which is nothing but a Type!  No 
representation.  Of course, if you have a variable of type Cxt, and it is a CxtVoid, then that will need to be represented in some 
way.  But you generally wouldn't care how.

An alternative might be to try to shoe-horn the concepts into Roles etc.  Who knows, perhaps they'll even fit!  :-)

Sam.

• Junctive and Higher order Types by Sam Vilain