Scala does that because ad hoc polymorphism doesnt resolve well with hindley milner type inference. F# also has this limitation and they get some of the way around this with a strict vertical projects file layout. The scope of its type inference is a middle ground between Scala and Ocaml which I think is a nice optimum, you leave most things untyped except the overloads which can't be determined so that the eager generalization you encounter in ocaml is less of a problem there too. The price in project layout is quite steep though but like in all things you train your self around it.
Plus with an IDE in Scala (or F#) you can just hover for the types.
I find it very difficult to believe that a large source of errors in ML programs are caused by programmers forgetting to annotate type information on top level functions.
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Please keep in mind the type inference systems in Haskell, Ocaml, Scala, etc are much more advanced and useful than C++ 0X or C#
Definitely. I really like Haskell's type inference, but have always been concerned about issues like those raised in: http://www.codecommit.com/blog/scala/universal-type-inferenc...
Scala does that because ad hoc polymorphism doesnt resolve well with hindley milner type inference. F# also has this limitation and they get some of the way around this with a strict vertical projects file layout. The scope of its type inference is a middle ground between Scala and Ocaml which I think is a nice optimum, you leave most things untyped except the overloads which can't be determined so that the eager generalization you encounter in ocaml is less of a problem there too. The price in project layout is quite steep though but like in all things you train your self around it.
Plus with an IDE in Scala (or F#) you can just hover for the types.
I find it very difficult to believe that a large source of errors in ML programs are caused by programmers forgetting to annotate type information on top level functions.