[Haskell-cafe] MTL vs Free-monads, what are your experiences

[Damian Nadales]

On Fri, Oct 14, 2016 at 6:00 PM, Matt <parsonsmatt at gmail.com> wrote:
> The mtl technique subsumes the free monad technique. if you have a term:
>
> getCurrentTime :: MonadClock m => m UTCTime
>
> Then you can *use* that function as anything that satisfies the constraint.
> Given an `IO` instance, that can just get the current time: `getCurrentTime
> :: IO UTCTime`. Given a mock instance, that can be `getCurrentTime ::
> MockClock UTCTime`. Given an instance on Free, you'd have `getCurrentTime ::
> Free CurrentTimeF UTCTime`
>
Thanks Matt. I think that was a nice explanation. Right now I'm
focusing on the composition and natural transformations of
free-monads, but I still haven't checked the MTL approach.

> I generally find it more pleasant to write functions in mtl style. If you're
> after more concrete guarantees on the DSL you're building and see yourself
> doing a lot of introspection and optimization, then a Free monad approach
> fits the bill.
>
I definitely like monad transformers. But I guess I'd have to explain
the specific case in another thread.

> Matt Parsons
>
> On Fri, Oct 14, 2016 at 11:35 AM, Damian Nadales <damian.nadales at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I was looking into free monads for designing a DSL for describing
>> scenarios of the form:
>>   scenario = do
>>     aId <- createA
>>     b0Id <- createB id
>>     b1Id <- createB id
>>     link b0 b1
>>
>> In our company we use a graph database, and currently we're setting up
>> the test data using raw queries O.O So I wanted to come up with a
>> better abstraction, and also enable us to do property based testing
>> (by testing on random scenarios like the one above).
>>
>> Anyway, I ran into this presentation:
>>     http://www.slideshare.net/jdegoes/mtl-versus-free
>>     http://degoes.net/articles/modern-fp-part-2
>>
>> In which monad transformers and free monads are compared. Do you have
>> any experience using any of these approaches. If so would you mind
>> sharing? ;)
>>
>> Thanks!
>> Damian
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>
>