Book Image

Learn Type-Driven Development

By : Yawar Amin, Kamon Ayeva
Book Image

Learn Type-Driven Development

By: Yawar Amin, Kamon Ayeva

Overview of this book

Type-driven development is an approach that uses a static type system to achieve results including safety and efficiency. Types are used to express relationships and other assumptions directly in the code, and these assumptions are enforced by the compiler before the code is run. Learn Type-Driven Development covers how to use these type systems to check the logical consistency of your code. This book begins with the basic idea behind type-driven development. You’ll learn about values (or terms) and how they contrast with types. As you progress through the chapters, you’ll cover how to combine types and values inside modules and build structured types out of simpler ones. You’ll then understand how to express choices or alternatives directly in the type system using variants, polymorphic variants, and generalized algebraic data types. You’ll also get to grips with sum types, build sophisticated data types from generics, and explore functions that express change in the types of values. In the concluding chapters, you’ll cover advanced techniques for code reuse, such as parametric polymorphism and subtyping. By end of this book, you will have learned how to iterate through a type-driven process of solving coding problems using static types, together with dynamic behavior, to obtain more safety and speed.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)

Types and values

Let's set the stage for the rest of the book with a discussion of types and values. At its core, a type is a set of values. Think of the type bool, which is what Reason calls the normal Boolean type. A bool value can be one of two different things: true or false. We say that these values inhabit (live in) the type. Anything else is an error.

This raises an interesting question: what does it mean to say? Anything else is an error' in this context? In fact, why should we care about types at all?

To answer these questions, let's think about what should happen if we try to do the operation "Bob" / 5. What does it mean to divide the string Bob by the number 5?

If you can't think of a good answer, well neither can anyone else. It's kind of a meaningless question. It's like asking, how does the color green taste? (Although this...