Theoretical computer science goes way over my head, but this is an interesting choice of terminology, because a branching tree of choices yet to be made is exac

Theoretical computer science goes way over my head, but this is an interesting choice of terminology, because a branching tree of choices yet to be made is exactly how I reason about side effects in programming, whether with monads or effect handlers or something else. So I wonder, is this new structure a generalization of existing tools, or is it something completely new?