Introduction to Functors & Applicatives

Welcome to a deeper dive into functional programming! In Scala, we often work with values that aren't just 'plain' but are wrapped in some kind of 'context'.

Think of an Option that might hold a value or not, or a List that holds many values. How do we work with these values without constantly checking if they exist or looping through them?

What do we mean by 'context'? It's like a container that adds meaning or behavior to a value. Common examples in Scala are:

• Option[T]: A value that might be present (Some(T)) or absent (None).
• List[T]: A collection of zero or more values.
• Future[T]: A value that will be available at some point in the future.

Functors and Applicatives are powerful tools to interact with values *inside* these contexts.