[Haskell-cafe] Category Theory and Haskell

[Gytis Žilinskas]

Greetings,

I'm only taking my very first steps learning Haskell, but I believe
that this mailing list might be appropriate for my question.

How difficult would it be to study category theory and simultaneously
come up with Haskell examples of various results that it presents?

I believe some background is in order. I am a second year maths
student (well actually I'm in-between 2nd and 3rd, but let's not delve
into details). I have also done some 2nd year CS courses so I have
some background in that too. My general interests seem to lie
somewhere between maths and compsci (I guess theoretical cs is the
word for it), but it doesn't look like there is a good way to study
the subject at an undergrad level. Most CompSci undergrad courses seem
to concentrate too much on the trade of being a programmer and only
present the basics of the theoretical results. While maths departments
seem to be reluctant to make room in the undergrad curriculum for a
huge subject that, after all, is maths.

Recently, whenever I try reading up on something that looks like an
exciting topic to me, I hit my head against category theory. That
seems to suggest, that I should check it out, as it might be a fun
subject to study, or at least provide valuable insights elsewhere.

I've tried looking for some resources online. Most of them are
outright scary and clearly have prerequisites that I lack. Some a
little bit more accessible. Overall, various similar questions on
different stackexchanges and even some old discussions on this mailing
list, imply that to study category theory one has to know many
examples from other advanced fields, in order to see the patterns that
category theory describes. Now I obviously lack that. Some basic group
theory, linear algebra, real/complex analysis and metric spaces is
pretty much all I've got. Moreover, most sources say that without the
knowledge of examples - category theory is an extremely dry subject to
study. Therefore, my preliminary plan is the following:

Read:
* Barry Mazur - When is one thing equal to some other thing?
* Conceptual mathematics : a first introduction to categories / F.
William Lawvere, Stephen H. Schanuel. (People say that it is rather
lightweight, but at this point my goal is to see the general idea of
category theory and get some taste of it)

Then, in the 2nd semester, I have an option of taking a self-study
module, and if I don't get bored by cats by that time - it would be
great to invest some more time in it (or rather, I'll do anything to
avoid applied maths *shudder*). However, I'll need to present my case
before the department staff and this, basically, is why I'm here.
Right now, it looks like the main argument against me, would be that I
can't appreciate the subject since I lack the fundamentals in other
areas of maths. So I was hoping, I could convince them that everything
I lack example wise - I'll find in Haskell. Okay, "everything" might
be too strong of a statement, but I don't really know what I'm talking
about so it's a bit difficult to calibrate. Could you comment whether
Haskell would serve me well for this purpose?

I've also seen these lecture notes:
http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/User:Michiexile/MATH198. But I'm
not sure if they won't be deemed too comp sci targeted. Therefore, I'm
putting more hope into "The Joy of Cats" which, at least according to
the first few pages, doesn't assume any prior knowledge that I don't
have.

So that's that, I would appreciate any advice you could give.

Gytis