The Potential of Higher-Kinded Types for Library Semantics

TS Congress

TypeScript Congress 2023

Alice Poteat

TypeScript Shenanigans

Ecosystem Tooling

There is a wall that we all hit when developing more sophisticated types: how can I 'abstract out' certain commonalities in my type-level logic? How can I make my types more reusable and composable? How can I make my types more expressive? This talk will introduce the fundamentals of Higher-Kinded Types, a compelling concept hitherto underutilized, and explore how they can significantly enhance the expressiveness of library semantics, leading to a more intuitive developer experience (DX). We'll demonstrate how HKTs can provide an elevated abstraction level, allowing you to model complex domain problems more naturally and in a type-safe manner. Join us to understand how leveraging HKTs can elevate your TypeScript coding practice, optimizing the semantics and delivering a more potent and featureful library interface.