Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: A functor is a familiar model of an implementation, where every operation in a specification is assigned a concrete instantiation at the outset. But some tasks are less eager: we often want to assemble systems while leaving backend choices such as data representations and algorithms for later. We observe that cofunctors admit a direct reading as such partial implementations, which are implementations whose extra argument is a state-dependent family of deferred choices. While cofunctors (also called retrofunctors) are not novel, their conceptual and purposive reading in this manner appears to be.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Author: Wang-Maścianica, Vincent
Institution: University of Oxford
Subfield: Artificial Intelligence
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7204583755
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