Selective Applicative Functors

Andrey Mokhov

Applicative functors and monads have conquered the world of functional programming by providing general and powerful ways of describing effectful computations using pure functions. Applicative functors provide a way to compose independent effects that cannot depend on values produced by earlier computations, and all of which are declared statically. Monads extend the applicative interface by making it possible to compose dependent effects, where the value computed by one effect determines all subsequent effects, dynamically.

This talk introduces an intermediate abstraction called selective applicative functors that requires all effects to be declared statically, but provides a way to select which of the effects to execute dynamically.

Part of the Symposium on Build Systems

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