Why Algebraic Effects?

By Jake Fecher 2025-05-21 Why Algebraic Effects Algebraic effects (a.k.a. effect handlers) are a very useful up-and-coming feature that I personally think will see a huge surge in popularity in the programming languages of tomorrow. They’re one of the core features of Ante, as well as being the focus of many research languages including Koka, Effekt, Eff, and Flix. However, while many articles or documentation snippets try to explain what effect handlers are (including Ante’s own documentation), few really go in-depth on why you would want to use them. In this post I’ll explain exactly that and will include as complete a list as possible on all the use-cases of algebraic effects. A Note on Syntax and Semantics I’ll be using Ante pseudocode for much of this article. If you’re not familiar with effect handlers or Ante I encourage you to read the documentation link above or read from any of the other effectful languages for a good head start! But I recognize it’s hard to get buy-in to ... Read full article.