Data.Future
The Future(a, b)
structure represents values that depend on time. This allows one
to model time-based effects explicitly, such that one can have full knowledge
of when they're dealing with delayed computations, latency, or anything that
can not be computed immediately.
A common use for this monad is to replace the usual Continuation-Passing Style form of programming, in order to be able to compose and sequence time-dependent effects using the generic and powerful monadic operations.
Example
var Future = var fs = // read : String -> Future(Error, Buffer) { return { fs }} // decode : Future(Error, Buffer) -> Future(Error, String) { return buffer} var intro = var outro = // You can use `.chain` to sequence two asynchronous actions, and// `.map` to perform a synchronous computation with the eventual// value of the Future.var concatenated = intro // But the implementation of Future is pure, which means that you'll// never observe the effects by using `chain` or `map` or any other// method. The Future just records the sequence of actions that you// wish to observe, and defers the playing of that sequence of actions// for your application's entry-point to call.//// To observe the effects, you have to call the `fork` method, which// takes a callback for the rejection, and a callback for the success.concatenated
Installing
The easiest way is to grab it from NPM. If you're running in a Browser environment, you can use Browserify
$ npm install data.future
Using with CommonJS
If you're not using NPM, Download the latest release, and require
the data.future.umd.js
file:
var Future =
Using with AMD
Download the latest release, and require the data.future.umd.js
file:
Using without modules
Download the latest release, and load the data.future.umd.js
file. The properties are exposed in the global Future
object:
Compiling from source
If you want to compile this library from the source, you'll need Git, Make, Node.js, and run the following commands:
$ git clone git://github.com/folktale/data.future.git
$ cd data.future
$ npm install
$ make bundle
This will generate the dist/data.future.umd.js
file, which you can load in
any JavaScript environment.
Documentation
You can read the documentation online or build it yourself:
$ git clone git://github.com/folktale/monads.maybe.git
$ cd monads.maybe
$ npm install
$ make documentation
Then open the file docs/index.html
in your browser.
Platform support
This library assumes an ES5 environment, but can be easily supported in ES3 platforms by the use of shims. Just include es5-shim :)
Licence
Copyright (c) 2013-2014 Quildreen Motta.
Released under the MIT licence.