Javascript

Functional Programming in TypeScript using the fp-ts Library: Exploring Task and TaskEither Operators

Mattia Magi

Published Nov 15, 2023

Updated Nov 15, 2023

4 min read

3 Part Series

Introduction:

Welcome back to our blog series on Functional Programming in TypeScript using the fp-ts library. In the previous three blog posts, we covered essential concepts such as the pipe and flow operators, Option type, and various methods and operators like fold, fromNullable, getOrElse, map, flatten, and chain. In this fourth post, we will delve into the powerful Task and TaskEither operators, understanding their significance, and exploring practical examples to showcase their usefulness.

Understanding Task and TaskEither:

Before we dive into the examples, let's briefly recap what Task and TaskEither are and why they are valuable in functional programming.

Task:

In functional programming, a Task represents an asynchronous computation that may produce a value or an error. It allows us to work with asynchronous operations in a pure and composable manner. Tasks are lazy and only start executing when we explicitly run them. They can be thought of as a functional alternative to Promises.

Now, let's briefly introduce the Either type and its significance in functional programming since this concept, merged with Task gives us the full power of TaskEither.

Either:

Either is a type that represents a value that can be one of two possibilities: a value of type Left or a value of type Right. Conventionally, the Left type represents an error or failure case, while the Right type represents a successful result. Using Either, we can explicitly handle and propagate errors in a functional and composable way.

Example: Handling Division with Either

Suppose we have a function divide that performs a division operation. Instead of throwing an error, we can use Either to handle the potential division by zero scenario. Here's an example:

import { Either, left, right } from 'fp-ts/lib/Either';

const divide: (a: number, b: number) => Either<string, number> = (a, b) => {
  if (b === 0) {
    return left('Error: Division by zero');
  }
  return right(a / b);
};

const result = divide(10, 2);

result.fold(
  (error) => console.log(`Error: ${error}`),
  (value) => console.log(`Result: ${value}`)
);

In this example, the divide function returns an Either type. If the division is successful, it returns a Right value with the result. If the division by zero occurs, it returns a Left value with an error message. We then use the fold function to handle both cases, printing the appropriate message to the console.

TaskEither:

TaskEither combines the benefits of both Task and Either. It represents an asynchronous computation that may produce a value or an error, just like Task, but also allows us to handle potential errors using the Either type. This enables us to handle errors in a more explicit and controlled manner.

Examples:

Let's explore some examples to better understand the practical applications of Task and TaskEither operators.

Example 1: Fetching Data from an API

Suppose we want to fetch data from an API asynchronously. We can use the Task operator to encapsulate the API call and handle the result using the Task's combinators. In the example below, we define a fetchData function that returns a Task representing the API call. We then use the fold function to handle the success and failure cases of the Task. If the Task succeeds, we return a new Task with the fetched data. If it fails, we return a Task with an error message. Finally, we use the getOrElse function to handle the case where the Task returns None.

import { pipe } from 'fp-ts/lib/function';
import { Task } from 'fp-ts/lib/Task';
import { fold } from 'fp-ts/lib/TaskEither';
import { getOrElse } from 'fp-ts/lib/Option';

const fetchData: Task<string> = () => fetch('https://api.example.com/data');

const handleData = pipe(
  fetchData,
  fold(
    () => Task.of('Error: Failed to fetch data'),
    (data) => Task.of(`Fetched data: ${data}`)
  ),
  getOrElse(() => Task.of('Error: Data not found'))
);

handleData().then(console.log);

Example 2: Performing Computation with Error Handling

Let's say we have a function divide that performs a computation and may throw an error. We can use TaskEither to handle the potential error and perform the computation asynchronously. In the example below, we define a divideAsync function that takes two numbers and returns a TaskEither representing the division operation. We use the tryCatch function to catch any potential errors thrown by the divide function. We then use the fold function to handle the success and failure cases of the TaskEither. If the TaskEither succeeds, we return a new TaskEither with the result of the computation. If it fails, we return a TaskEither with an error message. Finally, we use the map function to transform the result of the TaskEither.

import { pipe } from 'fp-ts/lib/function';
import { TaskEither, tryCatch } from 'fp-ts/lib/TaskEither';
import { fold } from 'fp-ts/lib/TaskEither';
import { map } from 'fp-ts/lib/TaskEither';

const divide: (a: number, b: number) => number = (a, b) => {
  if (b === 0) {
    throw new Error('Division by zero');
  }
  return a / b;
};

const divideAsync: (a: number, b: number) => TaskEither<Error, number> = (a, b) =>
  tryCatch(() => divide(a, b), (error) => new Error(String(error)));

const handleComputation = pipe(
  divideAsync(10, 2),
  fold(
    (error) => TaskEither.left(`Error: ${error.message}`),
    (result) => TaskEither.right(`Result: ${result}`)
  ),
  map((result) => `Computation: ${result}`)
);

handleComputation().then(console.log);

In the first example, we saw how to fetch data from an API using Task and handle the success and failure cases using fold and getOrElse functions. This allows us to handle different scenarios, such as successful data retrieval or error handling when the data is not available.

In the second example, we demonstrated how to perform a computation that may throw an error using TaskEither. We used tryCatch to catch potential errors and fold to handle the success and failure cases. This approach provides a more controlled way of handling errors and performing computations asynchronously.

Conclusion:

In this blog post, we explored the Task and TaskEither operators in the fp-ts library. We learned that Task allows us to work with asynchronous computations in a pure and composable manner, while TaskEither combines the benefits of Task and Either, enabling us to handle potential errors explicitly.

By leveraging the concepts we have covered so far, such as pipe, flow, Option, fold, map, flatten, and chain, we can build robust and maintainable functional programs in TypeScript using the fp-ts library. Stay tuned for the next blog post in this series, where we will continue our journey into the world of functional programming.

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About the author(s)

Mattia Magi

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Increasing development velocity with Cursor

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The @ button has a dropdown that allows you to add files, folders, web links, past chats, git commits, and more to the context. Before you prompt, always make sure you add the relevant content it needs as context so that it has everything it needs to provide the best response. Settings and Rules Cursor has its own settings page, which you can access through Cursor → Settings → Cursor Settings. This is where you log in to your account, manage various features, and enable or disable models. In the General section, there is an option for Privacy Mode. This is one setting in particular I recommend enabling. Aside from that, just explore around and see what’s available. Models The model you use is just as important as your prompt and the context that you provide. Models are the underlying AI/LLM used to process your input. The most well-known is GPT-4o, the default model for ChatGPT. There are a lot of different models available, and Cursor provides access to most of them out of the box. 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Try out different models for different tasks, get a feel for it, and find what works for you. Use cases Agents and LLM models are still far from perfect. That being said, there are already a lot of tasks they are very good at. The more effective you are with these tools, the more you will be able to get done in a shorter amount of time. Generating test cases Have some code that you would like unit tested? Cursor is very good at generating test cases and assertions for your code. The fewer barriers there are to testing a piece of code, the better the result you will get. So, try your best to write code that is easily testable! If testing the code requires some mocks or other pieces to work, do your best to provide it the context and instructions it needs before writing the tests. Always review the test cases! There could be errors or test cases that don’t make sense. Most of the time, it will get you pretty close to where you want to be. Here’s an example of using the Agent mode to install packages for testing and generate unit tests for the tic-tac-toe game logic: Generating documentation This is another thing we know AI models are good at - summarizing large chunks of information. Make sure it has the context of whatever you want to document. This one, in particular, is really great because historically, keeping documentation up to date is a rare and challenging practice. Here’s an example of using the Agent mode to generate documentation for the tic-tac-toe game: Code review There are a lot of up-and-coming tools outside of Cursor that can handle this. For example, GitHub now has Copilot integrated in pull requests for code reviews. It’s never a bad idea to have whatever change set you’re looking to commit reviewed and inspected before pushing it up to the remote, though. You can provide your unstaged changes or even specific commits as context to a Cursor Ask or Agent prompt. Getting up to speed in a new code base Being able to query a codebase with the power of LLM’s is truly fantastic. It can be a great help to get up to speed in a large new codebase quickly. Some example prompts: > Please provide an overview of this project and how to get started developing with it > I need to make some changes to the way that notifications are grouped in the UI, please provide a detailed analysis and pseudo code outlining how the grouping algorithm works If you have a question about the code base, ask Cursor! Refactoring Refactoring code in a code base is a much quicker process in Cursor. You can execute refactors depending on their scope in a couple of distinct ways. For refactors that don’t span a lot of files or are less complex, you can probably get away with just using the autocomplete. For example, if you make a change to something in a file and there are several instances of the same pattern following, the autocomplete will quickly pick up on this and help you tab through the changes. If you switch to another file, this information will still be in context and can be continued most of the time. For larger refactors spanning several files, using the Agent feature will most likely be the quickest way to get it done. Add all the files you plan to make changes to the Agent tab’s context window. Provide specific instructions and/or a basic example of how to execute the refactor. Let the Agent work, if it doesn’t get it exactly right initially, you can always give it corrections in a follow-up prompt. Generating new code/features This is the big promise of AI agents and the one with the most room for mixed results. My main recommendation here is to keep experimenting. Keep learning to prompt more effectively, compare results from different models, and pay attention to the results you get from each use case. I personally get the best results building new features in small, focused chunks of work. It can also be helpful to have a dialog with the Ask feature first to plan out the feature's details that the Agent can follow up on and implement. If there are existing patterns in your codebase for accomplishing certain things, provide this information in your prompts and make sure to add the relevant code to the context. For example, if you’re adding a new form to the web page and you have other similar forms that handle validation and making back-end calls in the same way, Cursor can base the code for the new feature on this. Example prompt: Generate a form for creating a new post, follow similar patterns from the create user profile form, and look to the post schema for the fields that should be included. Remember that you can always follow up with additional prompts if you aren’t quite happy with the results of the first.. If the results are close but need to be adjusted in some way, let the agent know in the next prompt. You may find that for some things, it just doesn’t do well yet. Mentally note these things and try to get to a place where you can intuit when to reach for the Agent feature or just write some of the code the old-fashioned way. Tips and tricks The more you use Cursor, the more you will find little ways to get more out of it. Here are some of the tips and patterns that I find particularly useful in my day-to-day work. Generating UI with screenshots You can attach images to your prompts that the models can understand using computer vision. To the left of the send button, there is a little button to attach an image from your computer. This functionality is incredibly useful for generating UI code, whether you are giving it an example UI as a reference for generating new UI in your application or providing a screenshot of existing UI in your application and prompting it to change details in reference to the image. Cursor Rules Cursor Rules allow you to add additional information that the LLM models might need to provide the best possible experience in your codebase. You can create global rules as well as project-specific ones. An example use case is if your project has some updated dependency with newer APIs than the one on which the LLM has been trained. I ran into this when adding Tailwind v4 to a project; the models are always generating code based on Tailwind v3 or earlier. Here’s how we can add a rules file to handle this use case: ` If you want to see some more examples, check out the awesome-cursorrules repository. Summary Learn to use Cursor and similar tools to enhance your development process. It may not give you actual superpowers, but it may feel like it. All the features and tools we’ve covered in this post come together to provide an amazing experience for developing all types of software and applications....

Apr 18, 2025

11 mins

AICursor

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Functional Programming in TypeScript using the fp-ts Library: Exploring Task and TaskEither Operators

3 Part Series

Introduction:

Understanding Task and TaskEither:

Task:

Either:

Example: Handling Division with Either

TaskEither:

Examples:

Example 1: Fetching Data from an API

Example 2: Performing Computation with Error Handling

Conclusion:

Mattia Magi

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