Chapter 2 Comparing Approaches to Generic Programming in Haskell

Abstract. The last decade has seen a number of approaches to datatype-generic programming: PolyP, Functorial ML, ‘Scrap Your Boilerplate’, Generic Haskell, ‘Generics for the Masses’, and so on. The approaches vary in sophistication and target audience: some propose fullblown programming languages, some suggest libraries, some can be seen as categorical programming methods. In these lecture notes we compare the various approaches to datatype-generic programming in Haskell. We introduce each approach by means of example, and we evaluate it along different dimensions (expressivity, ease of use, and so on).