Madeeither

Madeeither is a term used in some programming communities to describe a value or construct that can be one of two possible outcomes. It is closely related to algebraic data types such as Either or Result, and is typically used informally rather than as a formal standard.

Origin and usage: The word is a portmanteau of made and either, first appearing in online discussions during the 2010s to emphasize that a computation yields a defined alternative outcome rather than an undefined result. In practice, a madeeither encodes two branches: a success or a failure, or a left/right, ok/error pair. Languages with native sum types represent this directly; in other languages it is implemented with tagged unions, unions, or objects with a discriminant.

Examples: A function fetchUser might return a madeeither<User, NetworkError>, meaning the call yields either a User value or a NetworkError. Code often tests the branch and handles the two possibilities explicitly.

Advantages and alternatives: Using a madeeither makes error handling explicit and can reduce null or exception-based control flow. Critics argue that overuse can complicate composition, and that established types like Either or Result are clearer in strongly typed languages.

See also: Either type, Result type, Discriminated unions, Functional programming.

This is a concise, neutral overview of the concept, noting that the term is informal and not part of a formal vocabulary.