bracevac / effects-rosetta-stone

A comparison of how computational effects and handlers are implemented in various programming languages.

Effects and handlers Rosetta stone

A collection of examples demonstrating programming with effects and handlers in various programming languages.

How to contribute

General guidelines

1. Each example instance should be self-contained.

2. Each example should demonstrate one aspect of effectful programming. This does not mean it has to be simple.

3. In the naming of making comparisons possible, different implementations of a single example should do the same thing as far as that is possible. For instance, if there are two ways to implement an effect, e.g., state using the usual monad and state using parametrized effects, then there should be two examples which are identical, except for the implementation. If you feel that the implementation is unnatural, please comment on this, but still do it.

4. Do not print things out in examples that do not call for printing. Instead, just compute whatever needs to be computed and store the results in top-level values. Many languages will show the values anyhow, and that is as good as printing.

5. All folder names are in lower case, with words separated by dashes, e.g., cooperative-threads, multicore-ocaml, algol-68.

Repository structure

The repository contains examples in the examples folder, with a subfolder examples/example-x for each "Example X", and further containing:

• README.md contains a general description of the example

• language-y contains the example implemented in "Language Y", which further contains:

  • an optional README.md contains further comments on the language implementation of the example,
  • a Makefile whose target all runs all the source code
  • self-contained source code, following the established standards for the programming language

How to contribute a new programming language

To add a new programming language My Language, follow these steps:

1. Pick a lower-case name for the folders which contain examples written in My Language, e.g., my-language.
2. Describe the language in the section Languages below. Use my-language as the section name. Please provide links to the language home page and installation instructions.
3. Implement at least one example instance in your language.

How to contribute a new example

To add a completely new example, follow these steps:

1. Pick a lower case folder name for the example, e.g., example-x.
2. Create a lower-case folder examples/example-x that will contain the example and put in it README.md with a general description of the example. Please follow the format of existing example descriptions.
3. Implement at least one example instance so that it is clear what needs to be implemented.

How to contribute an example instance

To implement an example instance of example-x in language-y, create examples/example-x/language-y and populate it, following the repository structure guidelines.

You may show several variants of the example. We recommend that you put them in separate files, comment on them on the README.md file, and clearly mark one of the examples as the main one. The main example is the one that people should look at first.

How to contribute an example non-instance

If something cannot be naturally implemented in your language, we want to know about it! Create the folder examples/example-x/language-y and put in it README.md which explains what the problem is.

You may add a partial, simplified, or modified implementation, in which case you should explicitly describe the changes you made in README.md.

May I improve other people's code?

Yes, we strongly encourage sharing and cooperation.

Languages

An alphabetically ordered list of the languages used in the examples. The section name must match the folder name used for that language.

eff

The Eff programming language can be installed through OPAM, compiled from source code, or run in a browser.

To run Eff code contained in a file example.eff, run from the command line:

eff example.eff

You can also run make in the example directory and it will run all examples for you.

frank

Install Frank from the Frank GitHub repository. To run a Frank program contained in a file example.fk, run from the command line:

frank example.fk

multicore-ocaml

Multicore OCaml can be installed through OPAM:

$ opam remote add multicore https://github.com/ocamllabs/multicore-opam.git
$ opam switch 4.06.1+multicore

About the repository

The participants of Dagstuhl seminar Algebraic effect handlers go mainstream have initiated this repository of examples that show how to program with algebraic effects and handlers in various languages.