Add parallel docs

docs/src/main/resources/microsite/data/menu.yml

@@ -84,6 +84,10 @@ options:
     url: typeclasses/foldable.html
     menu_type: typeclasses
 
+  - title: Parallel
+    url: typeclasses/parallel.html
+    menu_type: typeclasses
+
   - title: MonoidK
     url: typeclasses/monoidk.html
     menu_type: typeclasses

docs/src/main/tut/typeclasses/parallel.md

@@ -0,0 +1,118 @@
+---
+layout: docs
+title:  "Parallel"
+section: "typeclasses"
+source: "core/src/main/scala/cats/Parallel.scala"
+scaladoc: "#cats.Parallel"
+---
+# Parallel
+
+When browsing the various `Monads` included in cats,
+you may have noticed that some of them have data types that are actually of the same structure,
+but instead have instances of `Applicative`. E.g. `Either` and `Validated`.
+
+This is because defining a `Monad` instance for data types like `Validated` would be inconsistent with its error-accumulating behaviour.
+In short, `Monads` describe dependent computations and `Applicatives` describe independent computations.
+
+Sometimes however, we want to use both in conjuction with each other.
+In the example of `Either` and `Validated` it is trivial albeit cumbersome to convert between the two types.
+Below is a short example of a situation where we might run into this.
+For simplicity, we'll use `String` as our type to represent errors.
+
+```tut:book
+import cats.implicits._
+import cats.data._
+
+case class Name(value: String)
+case class Age(value: Int)
+case class Person(name: Name, age: Age)
+
+def parse(s: String): Either[NonEmptyList[String], Int] = {
+  if (s.matches("-?[0-9]+")) Right(s.toInt)
+  else Left(NonEmptyList.one(s"$s is not a valid integer."))
+}
+
+def validateAge(a: Int): Either[NonEmptyList[String], Age] = {
+  if (a > 18) Right(Age(a))
+  else Left(NonEmptyList.one(s"$a is not old enough"))
+}
+
+def validateName(n: String): Either[NonEmptyList[String], Name] = {
+  if (n.length >= 8) Right(Name(n))
+  else Left(NonEmptyList.one(s"$n Does not have enough characters"))
+}
+
+```
+
+Now we want to parse two Strings into a value of `Person`:
+
+```tut:book
+def parsePerson(ageString: String, nameString: String) =
+  for {
+    age <- parse(ageString)
+    person <- (validateName(nameString).toValidated, validateAge(age).toValidated)
+       .mapN(Person)
+       .toEither
+  } yield person
+
+```
+
+We had to convert to and from `Validated` manually.
+While this is still manageble, it get's worse the more `Eithers` we want to combine in parallel.
+
+To mitigate this pain, cats introduces a type class `Parallel` that abstracts over `Monads` which also support parallel composition.
+It is simply defined in terms of conversion functions between the two data types:
+
+```scala
+trait Parallel[M[_], F[_]] {
+  def sequential: F ~> M
+
+  def parallel: M ~> F
+}
+```
+Where `M[_]` has to have an instance of `Monad` and `F[_]` an instance of `Applicative`.
+
+Recall that `~>` is just an alias for [`FunctionK`](datatypes/functionk.html).
+This allows us to get rid of most of our boilerplate from earlier:
+
+```tut:book
+def parsePerson(ageString: String, nameString: String) =
+  for {
+    age <- parse(ageString)
+    person <- (validateName(nameString), validateAge(age)).parMapN(Person)
+  } yield person
+```
+
+We can also traverse over a `Traverse` using `Parallel`:
+
+```tut
+List(Either.left(42), Either.right(NonEmptyList.one("Error 1")), Either.right(NonEmptyList.one("Error 2"))).parSequence
+```
+
+
+
+Parallel is also really useful for `zipping` collections. The standard `Applicative` instance for `List`, `Vector`, etc.
+behaves like the cartesian product of the individual collections:
+
+```tut
+(List(1, 2, 3), List(4, 5, 6)).mapN(_ + _)
+```
+
+However often we will want to `zip` two or more collections together.
+We can define a different `ap` for most of them and use the `parMapN` syntax for that:
+
+```tut
+(List(1, 2, 3), List(4, 5, 6)).parMapN(_ + _)
+```
+
+## NonEmptyParallel - a weakened Parallel
+
+If you recall that some types cannot form a `Monad` or an `Applicative` because it's not possible to implement the `pure` function for them.
+However, these types usually can have instances for `FlatMap` or `Apply`.
+For types like these we can use the `NonEmptyParallel` type class.
+An example for one of these is `ZipList`.
+
+
+With instances of `NonEmptyParallel` it's not possible to use the `parTraverse` and `parSequence` functions,
+but we can still use `parMapN` and also `parNonEmptyTraverse` and `parNonEmptySequence`,
+which are analogous to the functions defined on [`NonEmptyTraverse`](nonemptytraverse.html).