Why the Free Monad Isn't Free

Explore the concept of Free Monads in Scala through this 41-minute conference talk from Scala Days New York 2016. Delve into the definition of Free Monads without complex category theory and gain confidence in determining when to use them in your code. Examine alternatives, discussing trade-offs in maintainability, performance, and design. Learn about mono composition, functors, and monads before diving into Free Monads. Understand the reasons for delaying evaluation, deferring side effects, and trampolining. Discover how to write and use multiple interpreters, and explore practical use cases. Gain insights from the speaker's personal experience and participate in a Q&A session to deepen your understanding of this advanced Scala concept.

Introduction
Outline
Mono
Composition
Functors
Monads
Free Monad
Why delay evaluation
Deferring sideeffects
Trampolining
The heap
Function signature
Writing an interpreter
Using multiple interpreters
Deferring side effects
Blue Skies Scala
Know your domain
Sideeffects
Practical use cases
Other examples
Kelleys experience
Questions