Reading a Previous SO Question I was confused to find Eric Lippert saying that an interface cannot be defined in C# for all Monads, using an implementation as below:
typeInterface Monad<MonadType<A>>
{
static MonadType<A> Return(A a);
static MonadType<B> Bind<B>(MonadType<A> x, Func<A, MonadType<B>> f);
}
My problem is all the problems listed in the question seem to have easy solutions:
- no "higher kinded types" => use parent interfaces
- no static method in interface. => why use static?! just use instance methods
Monad is a pattern allowing chaining of operations on wrapped types it seems easy to define a C# interface for all Monads allowing us to write a generic class for all monads Where's the problem?
using System;
using System.Linq;
public class Program
{
public static void Main()
{//it works, where's the problem?
new SequenceMonad<int>(5)
.Bind(x => new SequenceMonad<float>(x + 7F))
.Bind(x => new SequenceMonad<double>(x + 5D))
;
}
interface IMonad<T>{
IMonad<T> Wrap(T a);
IMonad<U> Bind<U>(Func<T, IMonad<U>> map);
T UnWrap();//if we can wrap we should be able to unwrap
}
class GenericClassForAllMonads<T>
{//example writing logic for all monads
IMonad<U> DoStuff<U>(IMonad<T> input, Func<T, IMonad<U>> map)
{ return map(input.UnWrap()); }
}
class SequenceMonad<T> : IMonad<T> where T:new()
{//specific monad implementation
readonly T[] items;//immutable
public SequenceMonad(T a)
{
Console.WriteLine("wrapped:"+a);
items = new[] { a };
}
public IMonad<B> Bind<B>(Func<T, IMonad<B>> map)
{ return map(UnWrap()); }
public T UnWrap()
{ return items == null? default(T) : items.FirstOrDefault(); }
public IMonad<T> Wrap(T a)
{
Console.WriteLine("wrapped:"+a);
return new SequenceMonad<T>(a);
}
}
}