I think object algebras have huge potential to improve the way complex software is written but I’ve never seen them used in practice. I think one reason why is that the research paper which introduced them is pretty hard to read. This post is my attempt to change that.
I’ve been working on this post off and on for like two years so I’m really excited to share it with people. It is very long. There’s a lot of ground to cover.
This deserves an hour of reading. My first pass is a criticism too sadly. Addition is too trivial, and every example is pure - this needs a rubber meets the road example to really spell out the benefits.
Philip Wadler story for you though: he taught me first year at uni and his first lecture he rips open his shirt and proclaims himself “Lambda Man!” - Haskell was a fun first semester
In green fields projects, this makes a fair bit of sense at initial reading, tentatively.
But new code becomes old code, and then builds on the quality / discipline / cowboy status of the last person to touch the code, in a complex and interlocking way.
I can’t say I’d be excited to find a partially converted existing codebase of this. But in fairness, I’m on my couch on a Sunday and haven’t actually worked through your examples (or read the original paper). I see the benefit to having both types of extensibility, obviously. Just not sure it outweighs the real world risk once actual humans start getting involved.
I don’t know a single person who can’t say they’ve never taken a single “good enough” shortcut at work, ever, and it seems this only works (efficiently) if it’s properly and fully implemented.