Monads

[Joe English]

Ashley Yakeley wrote:
> At 2001-05-17 02:03, Jerzy Karczmarczuk wrote:
>
> >Monads are *much* more universal than that. [...]
> >[...] Imperative programming is just one facet of the true story.
>
> Perhaps, but mostly monads are used to model imperative actions. And
> their use in imperative programming is the obvious starting point to
> learning about them.

I don't know about that; I use monads most often when dealing
with container classes (sets, bags, lists).  They also provide
a useful way to reason about parts of XPath and XSLT.

As far as learning about them goes, I don't think I really "got"
monads until reading Wadler's aptly-titled "Comprehending Monads",
which approaches them from this perspective.


--Joe English

  jenglish@flightlab.com