What is Haskell's Data.Typeable?

Question

I\'ve come across references to Haskell\'s Data.Typeable, but it\'s not clear to me why I would want to use it in my code.

What problem does it solve, and h

Answer 1

One of the earliest descriptions I could find of a Data.Typeable-like library for Haskell is by John Peterson from 1992: http://www.cs.yale.edu/publications/techreports/tr1022.pdf

The earliest "official" paper I know of introducing the actual Data.Typeable library is the first Scrap Your Boilerplate paper from 2003: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/simonpj/Papers/hmap/index.htm

I'm sure there's lots of intervening history that someone here can chime in with!