Analog of free monads for Profunctors
There's a more appropriate notion of making a free thing from a profunctor. Then we can work by analogy.
A free monoid, Y, generated by a set X is can be thought of as the solution to the equation "Y=1+XY". In Haskell notation that is
data List a = Nil | Cons a (List a)
A free monad, M, generated by the functor F can be thought of as the solution to the equation "M=1+FM" where the product "FM' is the composition of functors. 1 is just the identity functor. In Haskell notation that is
data Free f a = Pure a | Free (f (Free a))
Making something free from a profunctor P should look like a solution, A, to "A=1+PA". The product "PA" is the standard composition of profunctors. The 1 is the "identity" profunctor, (->)
. So we get
data Free p a b = Pure (a -> b) | forall x.Free (p a x) (Free p x b)
This is also a profunctor:
instance Profunctor b => Profunctor (Free b) where
lmap f (Pure g) = Pure (g . f)
lmap f (Free g h) = Free (lmap f g) h
rmap f (Pure g) = Pure (f . g)
rmap f (Free g h) = Free g (rmap f h)
If the profunctor is strong then so is the free version:
instance Strong p => Strong (Free p) where
first' (Pure f) = Pure (first' f)
first' (Free f g) = Free (first' f) (first' g)
But what actually is Free p
? It's actually a thing called a pre-arrow. Restricting, free strong profunctors are arrows:
instance Profunctor p => Category (Free p) where
id = Pure id
Pure f . Pure g = Pure (f . g)
Free g h . Pure f = Free (lmap f g) h
Pure f . Free g h = Free g (Pure f . h)
f . Free g h = Free g (f . h)
instance (Profunctor p, Strong p) => Arrow (Free p) where
arr = Pure
first = first'
Intuitively you can think of an element of a profunctor P a b
as taking an a
-ish thing to a b
-ish thing, the canonical example being given by (->)
. Free P
is an unevaluated chain of these elements with compatible (but unobservable) intermediate types.
So i think i figured it out: M ~ Monad
☺
instance Profunctor f => Functor (T f a) where
fmap f (In m) = In (dimap id (fmap f) m)
fmap f (Hole x) = Hole (f x)
fmap f (Var v) = Var v
instance Profunctor f => Applicative (T f a) where
pure = Hole
(<*>) = ap
instance Profunctor f => Monad (T f a) where
In m >>= f = In ((>>= f) <$> m)
Hole x >>= f = f x
Var v >>= _ = Var v
Seems obvious in hindthought.