On the non-compositionality of monads via distributive laws

<p>Monads are a useful tool in both computer science and mathematics: they model computational behaviour, describe data structures, and give access to Kleisli and Eilenberg-Moore categories. To utilise multiple monads simultaneously, monads can sometimes be composed to form composite monads. D...

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Main Author: Zwart, M
Other Authors: Gibbons, J
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: 2020
Subjects:
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author Zwart, M
author2 Gibbons, J
author_facet Gibbons, J
Zwart, M
author_sort Zwart, M
collection OXFORD
description <p>Monads are a useful tool in both computer science and mathematics: they model computational behaviour, describe data structures, and give access to Kleisli and Eilenberg-Moore categories. To utilise multiple monads simultaneously, monads can sometimes be composed to form composite monads. Distributive laws ensure that such composite monads capture the full behaviour of both their components, creating a lifting of the component monads to the appropriate Kleisli or Eilenberg-Moore categories. However, for a given pair of monads there does not necessarily exist a distributive law to compose them.</p> <p>This thesis presents a new method to prove so called <em>no-go theorems:</em> theorems that identify cases in which a distributive law cannot exist. The method, which uses an algebraic perspective on monads, has unique advantages over the more usual categorical approaches. The most important advantage is that it produces no-go theorems that identify large classes of monads that do not compose via distributive laws, where previously only a few specific counterexamples were known.</p> <p>Among the many examples in this thesis, there are several that answer open questions from the literature, and some that identify previously unnoticed mistakes in the literature. Our no-go theorems will hopefully prevent these type of mistakes from happening in future.</p>
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spelling oxford-uuid:b2222b14-3895-4c87-91f4-13a8d046febb2022-03-27T04:09:36ZOn the non-compositionality of monads via distributive lawsThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06uuid:b2222b14-3895-4c87-91f4-13a8d046febbSemantics of functional programmingCategory theoryEnglishHyrax Deposit2020Zwart, MGibbons, JCoecke, BMarsden, DStaton, SPanangaden, P<p>Monads are a useful tool in both computer science and mathematics: they model computational behaviour, describe data structures, and give access to Kleisli and Eilenberg-Moore categories. To utilise multiple monads simultaneously, monads can sometimes be composed to form composite monads. Distributive laws ensure that such composite monads capture the full behaviour of both their components, creating a lifting of the component monads to the appropriate Kleisli or Eilenberg-Moore categories. However, for a given pair of monads there does not necessarily exist a distributive law to compose them.</p> <p>This thesis presents a new method to prove so called <em>no-go theorems:</em> theorems that identify cases in which a distributive law cannot exist. The method, which uses an algebraic perspective on monads, has unique advantages over the more usual categorical approaches. The most important advantage is that it produces no-go theorems that identify large classes of monads that do not compose via distributive laws, where previously only a few specific counterexamples were known.</p> <p>Among the many examples in this thesis, there are several that answer open questions from the literature, and some that identify previously unnoticed mistakes in the literature. Our no-go theorems will hopefully prevent these type of mistakes from happening in future.</p>
spellingShingle Semantics of functional programming
Category theory
Zwart, M
On the non-compositionality of monads via distributive laws
title On the non-compositionality of monads via distributive laws
title_full On the non-compositionality of monads via distributive laws
title_fullStr On the non-compositionality of monads via distributive laws
title_full_unstemmed On the non-compositionality of monads via distributive laws
title_short On the non-compositionality of monads via distributive laws
title_sort on the non compositionality of monads via distributive laws
topic Semantics of functional programming
Category theory
work_keys_str_mv AT zwartm onthenoncompositionalityofmonadsviadistributivelaws