Control Your Effects in Haskell

Functional programming is all about not using effects. Particularly in Haskell. Well, it turns out we sometimes do want to program with effects. When that happens, we keep them under control. With monads. Right? Unfortunately, monads compose quite poorly in Haskell, and when they do, using them is often awkward. The result is that much Haskell code takes a dive into the IO monad when really it should not. This tutorial is if you’re still willing to fight this disturbing trend.

Strangely enough, with monads in Haskell past their 25th anniversary, this problem is only lately getting the attention it deserves. As a result, we have a handful of patterns and a quickly growing collection of effects libraries. Should you jump on one of those bandwagons or plod on with trusty old monad transformers? This tutorial will help you out!

Preparations

Check out this Github repo and follow the instructions in the README.

Mike Sperber

@sperbsen

Mike Sperber is CEO of Active Group, a software consultancy in Tübingen, Germany that develops software for client projects using functional programming. He has a long history of publishing on functional programming, including many research papers, and was the project editor for the R6RS standard for the Scheme programming language. He has also developed an introductory course in programming in use at several German universities, based on the PLT group’s Program by Design approach. He also co-authored (with Nicole Rauch) the curriculum on Functional Software Architecture for iSAQB. Mike is one of the founders of the funktionale-programmierung.de blog, and one of the co-organizers of BOB.