Re: Struggling to write Dissecting Guix, Part 2

[david larsson <david.larsson@selfhosted.xyz>]

On 2023-01-25 08:12, ( wrote:
> Hello Guix,
> 
> I've been struggling to write Part 2 of Dissecting Guix; I'm just not
> sure where to start to
> explain monads.
> 
> It's hard for a variety of reasons, those being that:
> 
>   - Guile has no type system, so you can't express monads in terms of 
> types
>   - Guix doesn't implement very many monads (only state, identity, and
> store), so it's
>     difficult to explain with a simpler monad, as there are no simpler 
> monads
>   - Guix doesn't have functors or monoids either, so it's hard to
> "progressively" explain
>     first functors, then monoids, then monads
>   - Monads are just difficult in general :P
> 
> Any suggestions? :/
> 
>     -- (

Hi,
Im not an expert on monads by any means, but...

There's a monad tutorial fallacy to avoid: 
https://byorgey.wordpress.com/2009/01/12/abstraction-intuition-and-the-monad-tutorial-fallacy/
written by someone Brent: "Associate Professor of Computer Science at 
Hendrix College. Functional programmer, mathematician, teacher, pianist, 
follower of Jesus."

And, personally, I liked this tutorial: 
https://towardsdatascience.com/monads-from-the-lens-of-imperative-programmer-af1ab8c8790c

Maybe it helps, maybe not.

Best regards,
David