Post #1889578

2026-05-02 17:13 UTC

@joe@f.duriansoftware.com What do you think is the maximal subset of effect handlers that can be supported well in a C-like language (with a C-like compilation model)?

Replies (2)

@joe@f.duriansoftware.com 2026-05-02 18:03

@zwarich@hachyderm.io hmm. if your notion of “c-like” means a dynamic call stack with no implicit allocation then you can’t get much further than “throw” or “read”/“write” style handlers that either throw away the continuation or return immediately. but if you can have multiple fibers/threads then you should be able to have any sort of handler that needs only a one shot continuation, which I think only practically rules out amb-style effects

Open ##1889577
@AntonLorenzen@types.pl 2026-05-06 08:09

@zwarich@hachyderm.io @joe@f.duriansoftware.com Not really an answer to your question, but this reminded me of the effect handler libraries for C. In case it's useful: https://github.com/koka-lang/libmprompt https://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/slindley/papers/libseff.pdf

Open ##2236925