Monads

[Peter Douglass]

Monads are used not only for programming IO, state, exceptions etc, but also
are the foundation of lists.  It is hard to imagine functional programming
without this basic datatype.  Sets, Bags, trees etc are also monads.  Phil
Wadler wrote a very useful paper Comprehending Monads which I notice is not
found on the Haskell/bookshelf web page.  It can be found at

 http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/who/wadler/topics/monads.html

I recommend this page for anyone interested in monads.
--PeterD


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mads Skagen [mailto:bedloose@yahoo.dk]
> Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2001 4:25 AM
> To: haskell@haskell.org
> Subject: Monads
 
> Hi
 
> I'v currently working on a school-project where I have
> to describe the Haskell programming language.
 
> I've been looking through Monads and especially the IO
> monad, the Maybe monad and the list monad
> 
> My question is why are monads necessary in the
> language ?
 
> Is it not possible to construct the features provided
> by Monads using basic functional constructs ?
 
> What do I gain using Monads ?
 
> Thank you very much.
 
> Regards Skagen