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Kinds of Polymorphism

• Monomorphic languages:
  • All functions and procedures have unique type.
  • All values and variables of one and only type.
  • Pascal-like type systems.
• Polymorphic languages:
  • Values and variables may have more than one type.
  • Polymorphic functions have operatnds of more than one type.
  • Polymorphic types have operations applicable to operands of more than one type.
• Universal polymorphism:
  • Function works uniformly on range of types.
  • Parametric and inclusion polymorphism.
• Ad-hoc polymorphism:
  • Function works on several unrelated types.
  • Overlading and coercion.