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CS 15-212: Fundamental Structures of Computer Science II |
A functor is a parameterized module that acts as a kind of function which takes zero or more structures as arguments and returns a new structure as result. Functors greatly facilitate hierarchical organization in large programs. In particular, as discussed in the next few lectures, they can enable a clean separation between the details of particular definition and higher-level structure, allowing the implementation of "generic" algorithms that are easier to debug and maintain, and that maximize code reuse.