The Algebra of Data, and the Calculus of Mutation.
Kalani Thielen (18 April 2009)🔗 http://static.v25media.com/the-algebra-of-data-and-the-calculus-of-mutation.html
âš“ #functional-programming #bcs2220 #bcs
A short tutorial on algebraic data types, useful tools for reasoning about and refactoring data structures:
In what sense are data types algebraic? […] Isn’t this all just a bunch of general abstract nonsense? We’ll investigate these questions, and perhaps demystify this important concept of functional languages.
An example of how these ideas can help can be seen in my old blog post on The Origins of Flow Control and Acknowledgements.
(Aside: this post’s link seems to be to a rescued copy of the text, which was originally at http://blog.lab49.com/archives/3011.)