[Haskell] Math behind Haskell

[Evan Klitzke]

On Sun, 2007-09-23 at 23:24 +0200, Tomas Caithaml wrote:
> Hi all.
> 
> When I was playing with Haskell and reading stuff about it, I noticed
> that there is a lot of information in a form of research papers and a
> lot of mathematics involved. I must confess that I quite like this
> academic approach.
> 
> Well, I thought that while I am still at university I could take some
> math classes to help me better understand these things and 
> broaden my horizon.
> 
> Any suggestion what could be relevant?

As a fellow student (fourth-year undergrad), I'm in a similar situation.
The primary difference for me is that I'm a math major, so I've spent
the last three years taking math courses and have only relatively
recently developed an interest in Computer Science (and especially
Haskell).

I'd suggest just start taking the standard upper division coursework for
math majors are your school. This probably includes abstract algebra
(groups, rings, and so forth), linear algebra, real/complex analysis,
and maybe some foundations courses like logic and set theory. It would
be really difficult to try to approach something like category theory
and topology rigorously without having a lot of basic mathematical
fluency; you'll need the mathematical insight you gain from taking these
basic courses to understand the higher level stuff, even if the concepts
aren't directly related. Also, once you've taken these kinds of classes
you'll be fluent enough in mathematics to understand the bigger picture
of how most of the other math disciplines interrelate, and you'll be in
a good position to figure out which disciplines are interesting to you,
and which ones you'll need to study further to understand more about the
disciplines that are of the most interest to you.

-- 
Evan Klitzke <evan at yelp.com>