Before this commit, the elaborator would only assign ?M <- P, if P was normalized. This is bad since normalization may "destroy" the structure of P.
For example, consider the constraint
[a : Bool; b : Bool; c : Bool] ⊢ ?M::1 ≺ implies a (implies b (and a b))
Before this, ?M::1 will not be assigned to the "implies-term" because the "implies-term" is not normalized yet.
So, the elaborator would continue to process the constraint, and convert it into:
[a : Bool; b : Bool; c : Bool] ⊢ ?M::1 ≺ if Bool a (if Bool b (if Bool (if Bool a (if Bool b false true) true) false true) true) true
Now, ?M::1 is assigned to the term
if Bool a (if Bool b (if Bool (if Bool a (if Bool b false true) true) false true) true) true
This is bad, since the original structure was lost.
This commit also contains an example that only works after the commit is applied.
Signed-off-by: Leonardo de Moura <leonardo@microsoft.com>
It was not a good idea to use heterogeneous equality as the default equality in Lean.
It creates the following problems.
- Heterogeneous equality does not propagate constraints in the elaborator.
For example, suppose that l has type (List Int), then the expression
l = nil
will not propagate the type (List Int) to nil.
- It is easy to write false. For example, suppose x has type Real, and the user
writes x = 0. This is equivalent to false, since 0 has type Nat. The elaborator cannot introduce
the coercion since x = 0 is a type correct expression.
Homogeneous equality does not suffer from the problems above.
We keep heterogeneous equality because it is useful for generating proof terms.
Signed-off-by: Leonardo de Moura <leonardo@microsoft.com>