In F#, we can declare a polymorphic value

> let a = [];; 

val a : 'a list

However, if we make it mutable, fsharpi complains with value restriction error

> let mutable a = [];;

  let mutable a = [];;
  ------------^

/Users/kseo/stdin(1,13): error FS0030: Value restriction. The value 'a' has been inferred to have generic type
    val mutable a : '_a list    
Either define 'a' as a simple data term, make it a function with explicit arguments or, if you do not intend for it to be generic, add a type annotation.
> let a = [];; 

val a : 'a list

This looks unreasonable at first! But let’s see what happens if we get rid of this restriction.

let mutable a = []
let f x = a <- (x :: a)

f(1);;
f(true);;
f(“Hello World”);;

The type of function f is ‘a -> unit. Hence f(1), f(true) and f(“Hello World”) type check. However, a ends up having three different types [“Hello World”; true; 1]. Oops! So, the type system of F# has a rule called value restriction to prevent this kind of bad behaviour.

In fact, all ML family languages have value restriction. See Notes on SML97’s Value Restriction for further information.