Typeclasses.js

• ⚠️ Rather useless, mostly proof-of-concept.
• ⚠️ The interface is shit. Plans for revision are described here.

Typeclasses are generic interfaces that provide a common set of features for different types of values. When similar structure is imposed over differently typed values, and values sharing structure are known to share fundamental behaviours, we can write functions largely agnostic to the values they receive in terms of that common structure. This is a kind of ad-hoc polymorphism, freeing us from lines and lines of case handling and boilerplate.

Monoid is one such example of a typeclass. In abstract algebra, a monoid is defined as a three-tuple consisting of a set S, a binary operator +, and unit e, such that (1) the set is closed under +, (2) + is associative, and (3) e serves as left and right identity (there's no commutativity constraint.) For example, the natural numbers form a monoid under both addition (e=0) and multiplication (e=1.) Lists form a monoid under concatenation, with the empty list as identity. As the symbol of the operator gives away a little bit, a useful way of thinking about monoids is as adding things.

The monoid instances in this library call the identity empty, and the binary operator plus, such that the list instance can be defined:

{ plus: function(x,y) { return x.concat(y); }
, empty: []
}

Likewise, a lawful monoid instance for objects could operate on keys likeso:

{ plus: function(x,y) { 
    for (var prop in y) {
      x[prop] = y[prop];
    }
    return x;
  } 
, empty: {}
}

(plus is equivalent to _'s extend.)

Given this common interface, we can write a generic function to reduce a same-typed list of values to a single value using plus:

function mconcat(xs) {
  var instances = retrieve(xs[0], ['monoid']);
  with(instances.monoid) {
    return xs.reduce(plus, zero);
  }
};

Monoid structure defined a relationship between same-typed values, regardless of how they're persisted - lists? trees? Thus, mconcat can be generalised to any structure that can be folded over. Due to a constraint in the current implementation, we need a way of retrieving a term of the container's value:

function fst(struct) {
  var instances = retrieve(struct, ['indexable'];
  with (instances.indexable) {
    return head(struct);
  };
};

function mconcat(struct) {
  var instances = retrieve(fst(struct), ['foldable', 'monoid']);
  with (instances) {
    return foldable.foldr(struct, monoid.plus, monoid.zero);
  };
};

Further, we could exploit the monoid's associativity requirement by parallelising the fold operator (in the divide-and-conquer pattern), though this is outside the scope of this tutorial..

Default instances

lib/typeclasses/
|-- applicative
|   |-- function.js 
|   |-- list.js
|   `-- object.js
|-- foldable
|   |-- list.js
|   `-- object.js
|-- function.js
|-- functor
|   |-- function.js
|   |-- list.js
|   `-- object.js
|-- indexable
|   |-- list.js
|   `-- object.js
|-- list.js
|-- monad
|   |-- function.js
|   |-- list.js
|   `-- object.js
|-- monoid
|   |-- list.js
|   `-- object.js
`-- object.js

Defining new instances and typeclasses

> typeclasses().retrieve(3,['monoid']);
{ monoid: [Error: Missing monoid instance for Number!] }
> var product = { zero: 1, plus: function(x,y) { return x*y; }};
undefined
> typeclasses({Number:{monoid:product}}).retrieve(3,['monoid'])
{ monoid: { zero: 1, plus: [Function] } }
> function I(x) { this.getIdentity = x; };
> var i = new I(23);
> var identity = { map: function(f,x){return new I(f(x.getIdentity)}};
> typeclasses({I:{functor:identity}}).retrieve(i,['functor']);
{ functor: { map: [Function] } }