> but I don't understand that is connected to model software on paper
I was talking more generally about techniques that allow for sneaking in mathematical thinking in various stages of development, not just modelling. Largely because of the very precise types which make a large part of your program verifiable (and force you to think about a lot of things you wouldn't have if you were using, say, JavaScript).
I was recently making a script engine for a game. It was really neat to realize that the "runScript" method was literally just a mapping between two monads. No special state inbetween, no complex logic, no file lookup or anything like that. These types of insight accumulate, and there's really a tonne of stuff to learn (this potential for learning the language itself feels much greater in functional programming for me).
> Isn't there any easier way to describe I/O than with category theory?
This isn't category theory! Do you really think every working Haskell programmer is some mathematician? No. Look at this random image I googled, you think Haskell programmers understand this? https://i.stack.imgur.com/4IzGk.png Most mathematicians don't!
The notion of a monad in functional programming might be inspired by category theory, but you're really better of not taking that connection too seriously. Functors, applicatives, and monads are all very simple notions that should be understood as programming constructs, not arcane math. If you want an area of math to research to most benefit your functional programming, that is undoubtedly mathematical logic and/or intro-level type theory, and not category theory. (This should take you in the direction of dependent types.)
Really, types are the key. The notion of a monad is best understood not through vague real-world analogies with sandwiches, but through the type and implementation of its >>= method. The reason for that is that the point of monads is in composition. And basic linear algebra is enough to understand the importance of composition, not category theory. Just look at the Maybe monad to immediately understand it: Nothing >>= f = Nothing, Just x >>= f = f x, where f : a -> Maybe b. Isn't this a really clear, intuitive way of composing operations which might fail?
Same goes for IO. The only thing you're doing is composing some values. When you compose an IO Int with some function of the type Int -> IO (), you get back a value of type IO () (which your runtime executes if you bind it to main). All of this is right in the type, and it's just as intuitive a way of composing IO values as Maybe ones, IMO.
You get the added benefit of execution becoming not a side-effect, but a first-class member. Evaluation of IO programs is not their execution, you could evaluate putStrLn "asdf" a million times without it being executed. You can literally store those programs (values) somewhere and execute them later.
