In the constraint solver, we've traditionally modeled nested type via
a "type member" constraint of the form
$T1 = $T0.NameOfTypeMember
and treated $T1 as a type variable. While the solver did generally try
to avoid attempting bindings for $T1 (it would wait until $T0 was
bound, which solves the constraint), on occasion we would get weird
behavior because the solver did try to bind the type
variable.
With this commit, model nested types via DependentMemberType, the same
way we handle (e.g.) the nested type of a generic type parameter. This
solution maintains more information (e.g., we know specifically which
associated type we're referring to), fits in better with the type
system (we know how to deal with dependent members throughout the type
checker, AST, and so on), and is easier to reason able.
This change is a performance optimization for the type checker for a
few reasons. First, it reduces the number of type variables we need to
deal with significantly (we create half as many type variables while
type checking the standard library), and the solver scales poorly with
the number of type variables because it visits all of the
as-yet-unbound type variables at each solving step. Second, it
eliminates a number of redundant by-name lookups in cases where we
already know which associated type we want.
Overall, this change provides a 25% speedup when type-checking the
standard library.
