Lambda the Ultimate

A type-indexed function is a function that is defined for each member of some family of types. Haskell's type class mechanism provides open type-indexed functions, in which the indexing family can be extended at any time by defining a new type class instance. The purpose of this paper is to present TypeCase: a design pattern that allows the definition of closed type-indexed functions. It is inspired by Cheney and Hinze's work on lightweight approaches to generic programming. We generalise their techniques as a design pattern. Furthermore, we show that type-indexed functions with type-indexed types, and consequently generic functions with generic types, can also be encoded in a lightweight manner, thereby overcoming one of the main limitations of the lightweight approaches.

A new paper in a field we follow quite closely (i.e., generic programming).

The paper starts with a useful summary of important previous results, which is worth reading even if you don't plan on studying the whole paper.