Note quite monads (Haskell Unfolder #54)

Will be streamed today, 2026-04-22, at 18:30 UTC.

Abstract:

Monads are a very powerful abstraction: sometimes too powerful. We discuss why we might not always want the full generality of monads, and what we can use instead. Applicative functors are the most common alternative, but are sometimes too restrictive; we highlight the fundamental difference between applicative functors and monads, and finally introduce selective functors, which sit somewhere in between monads and applicative functors.