2020-12-17: Sam Lindley (University of Edinburgh)

Sat, 21 Oct 2023 21:24:08 +0100

Sam Lindley (University of Edinburgh)

Algebraic effects and effect handlers

Abstract

I'll give an introduction to algebraic effects and effect handlers as a general approach to programming and reasoning about effectful computation. I'll present the notion of a computation over an algebraic effect as a command-response tree over an effect signature quotiented by some equational theory. I'll consider how to interpret command-response trees and motivate effect handlers as the reification of such interpretations as an object language feature that provides a generic implementation strategy for algebraic effects. I'll give examples to show that it can be useful to interpret the same command-response tree using different interpretations which may not respect the same equational theory. Thus effect handlers can provide an expressive programming feature independently of any non-trivial algebraic theory.

2020-12-17 13:00:00 UTC
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