The Essence of Reactivity

Explore a comprehensive video presentation from the Haskell 2023 conference that delves into the essence of reactivity in programming. Discover how researchers Ivan Perez and Frank Dedden unify concepts from reactive programming, functional reactive programming, event-based programming, stream programming, and temporal logic through their shared foundation of time-varying values. Learn about a series of abstractions that capture the core elements of different forms of time variance, allowing for better expression of commonalities and differences between various programming paradigms. Examine how the nature of time, referencing past and future states, types of representable values, and evaluation mechanisms differ across these approaches. Gain insights into a prototype implementation in Haskell that demonstrates a generic interface capable of instantiating different abstractions based on the desired target. This 29-minute talk offers valuable perspectives on abstraction, stream programming, time variance, and domain-specific languages, providing a deeper understanding of reactive systems and their underlying principles.