11–20 of 44 posts
I dont think wasmfx should use this monika, as it makes it sound more graphics related than it really is. Naming and connotation of a name is important, as it frames the way people think about things.
I first heard of algebraic effects in a presentation about Unison recorded at Strangeloop. Realizing that exceptions, async, generators, and continuations could all be unified and implemented on top of one language feature was mind expanding. It looks like the juicy details are in the Explainer: https://github.com/WebAssembly/stack-switching/blob/main/pro...
The problem with abstracting control flow has always been the ease of composition within a program. I'm not sure if algebraic effects make that better, although I like the simplest form (exceptions with resume) for error handling. It's kind of like abelian groups and hyper graphs. They generalize many domains very nicely, and are an attractive abstraction. But it turns out they're too abstract for any individual doma…
The theory with algebraic effects is that you'd use them to implement those libraries. Most application code won't be implementing new types of effects, but exceptions, generators, async, and who knows what else can be implemented at the library level instead of the language level.
In theory it's a single abstraction that can be implemented once in the language and then all the more complicated abstractions can be swapped out as desired, rather than the current status quo where everyone has to use whatever patterns the language designers chose (which are often rather contentious).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with abstracting control flow has always been the ease of composition within a program. I'm not sure if algebraic effects make that better, although I like the simplest form (exceptions with resume) for error handling. It's kind of like abelian groups and hyper graphs. They generalize many domains very nicely, and are an attractive abstraction. But it turns out they're too abstract for any individual doma…
> they were all weird shit that I expect other people to use libraries for in most cases. The theory with algebraic effects is that you'd use them to implement those libraries. Most application code won't be implementing new types of effects, but exceptions, generators, async, and who knows what else can be implemented at the library level instead of the language level. In theory it's a single abstraction that can be…
I first heard of algebraic effects in a presentation about Unison recorded at Strangeloop. Realizing that exceptions, async, generators, and continuations could all be unified and implemented on top of one language feature was mind expanding. It looks like the juicy details are in the Explainer: https://github.com/WebAssembly/stack-switching/blob/main/pro...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> they were all weird shit that I expect other people to use libraries for in most cases. The theory with algebraic effects is that you'd use them to implement those libraries. Most application code won't be implementing new types of effects, but exceptions, generators, async, and who knows what else can be implemented at the library level instead of the language level. In theory it's a single abstraction that can be…
My point is that it's incredibly rare to actually need such abstractions.
the monika 'fx' is often used by graphics pipelines or rendering to mean special effects, and thus often take on the connotation of being related to graphics or rendering (e.g., javaFX). I dont think wasmfx should use this monika, as it makes it sound more graphics related than it really is. Naming and connotation of a name is important, as it frames the way people think about things.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's okay; _using_ WebAssembly is getting easier bit by bit. Features like this one allow the high level programming language features you know and love to be implemented efficiently behind the scenes.
But they make making WASM implementations harder to make.
I first heard of algebraic effects in a presentation about Unison recorded at Strangeloop. Realizing that exceptions, async, generators, and continuations could all be unified and implemented on top of one language feature was mind expanding. It looks like the juicy details are in the Explainer: https://github.com/WebAssembly/stack-switching/blob/main/pro...
The problem with abstracting control flow has always been the ease of composition within a program. I'm not sure if algebraic effects make that better, although I like the simplest form (exceptions with resume) for error handling. It's kind of like abelian groups and hyper graphs. They generalize many domains very nicely, and are an attractive abstraction. But it turns out they're too abstract for any individual doma…
The languages on top of WASM will still have exceptions, generators, etc.