[Haskell-cafe] Lists and monads

[Kevin Jardine]

As a Haskell neophyte, one of the things I find confusing is the way
that the usual list functions (map, fold, ++, etc.) often cannot be
used directly with monadic lists (m [a] or [m a]) but seem to require
special purpose functions like ap, mapM etc.

I get the idea of separating pure and impure code but am constantly
frustrated by the fact that stuff that would be easy outside a monad
seems to get more difficult inside, especially list manipulation. As a
result I tend to write ugly recursive list functions that would be
more appropriate with Python, say.

I suspect that things are not quite as difficult as they appear,
however, but cannot find any tutorials on monadic list manipulation.

Any suggestions for resources in that area?

Kevin