Data types à la carte or Trees that grow instead of custom parser

[psilospore]

In my first iteration of my parsing logic. I had an ADT that represented the types that could be parsed. However this locked the potential types that could be used.

I then changed the API to take in a parsing function and provided a default one that is super general but might accidentally catch types it shouldn't or miss when it shouldn't. The default one matches on a general pattern that has worked in most cases.

Data types a la carte seems to consider how to solve the first case:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-functional-programming/article/data-types-a-la-carte/14416CB20C4637164EA9F77097909409

Trees that grow might be another approach: https://simon.peytonjones.org/assets/pdfs/trees-that-grow.pdf

I haven't read either paper. I saw a talk using the first paper so I think that can work.

I think this is a nice add but not necessary