so

[juan_gandhi]

You know the stupid problem with Java/Scala collections: their contains() method takes any type; the explanation being that for this method to be type-dependent, we need contravariance, while collections are (mostly) covariant. So there.

Well, a natural transformation from a covariant functor to a contravariant is not only possible, it's a relatively popular thing. So, does it mean we can make contains() method type-dependent? The answer is YES!

  trait MyList[+T] { // declare a simple collection, e.g. list; it is covariant
    def head:T
    def tail:MyList[T]
    def ::[U>:T](x:U) = HeadAndTail(x, this)
    def size: Int
  }

  case object EmptyList extends MyList[Nothing] { // it's okay that it's a list of Nothing
    def head = error("This list is empty")
    def tail = error("this list is empty")
    def size = 0
  }

  case class HeadAndTail[T](head:T, tail: MyList[T]) extends MyList[T] {
    def size = 1 + tail.size
  }
// All the stuff above allows us to treat lists in a covariant way, like this:
      case class A(name: String) {override def toString = "A(" + name + ")"}
      case class B(override val name: String) extends A(name) {override def toString = "B(" + name + ")"}

      val listB = B("1") :: B("2") :: EmptyList
      listB.size must_== 2
      val listA = A("3") :: listB
      listA.size must_== 3
      val listC: MyList[Any] = listA
// See, MyList is covariant, so if B is a subtype of A, List[B] is a subtype of List[A]

And now... introduce a contravariant trait:
  
  trait Container[-T] {
    def contains(t:T): Boolean
  }

// and the natural transformation from MyList[+T] to Container[-T]:

  implicit def asContainer[T](list:MyList[T]): Container[T] = new Container[T] {
    def contains(t:T) = list.size > 0 && (list.head == t || asContainer(list.tail).contains(t))
  }

And it works. I can draw the appropriate commutative diagrams later, if it is not obvious.

      listA contains A("3") must beTrue
      listA contains B("1") must beTrue
//      listA contains "abracadabra" is a compilation error
      listC contains "abracadabra" must beFalse
      listC contains B("2") must beTrue

Questions? :)

I think it's cool; category theory applied directly to solve a code design problem.