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> It seems that if we take one more logical step in this direction, we'll get generics.

I agree, Unix would have been so much better with generics, ADTs, higher-order functions, monads, higher-kinded types, dependent types and structural pattern matching.

As I always say: "Those who do not understand generics were condemned to invent Unix, poorly."

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Yes, what you mean by sarcasm is exactly what I meant. When you try to improve stuff by going more universal, more abstract way, with data formats that are more "right", that's where you'll find yourself.

So, may be it's actually good that among all the modern tools in our arsenal we actually have something extremely simple and non-generic, which doesn't follow some abstract principle and just works instead.

If the Unix guys were smart they would have used an Idris REPL as default shell.

Why not Nimlang?

Because Nim is not dependently typed. You can't get sh*t done without dependent types.

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