Why I am learning category theory

Post by shakow » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 1:58 AM UTC

mrkeen wrote: post #107

i_am_toaster wrote: post #21

I would be willing to drink the kool-aid if I saw it being used in a practical way. I always feel these posts are filled with category theory jargon without ever explaining why any of the jargon is relevant or useful. I’ve even watched some applied category theory courses online and have yet to feel I’ve gained anything substantive from them. However, as I started off with, I’m always willing to try something out or…

> I always feel these posts are filled with category theory jargon The 80/20 rule really applies here. Most of the time there's only a few key type classes that people use. Pretty much just Monad, Monoid, Applicative, Functor. If you grok those, then what people say makes a lot more sense. > Can anyone give me a practical applied way in which category theory is a benefit to your design Monad is probably the best exam…

Post by charcircuit » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 2:15 AM UTC

ukj wrote: post #95

i_am_toaster wrote: post #21

I would be willing to drink the kool-aid if I saw it being used in a practical way. I always feel these posts are filled with category theory jargon without ever explaining why any of the jargon is relevant or useful. I’ve even watched some applied category theory courses online and have yet to feel I’ve gained anything substantive from them. However, as I started off with, I’m always willing to try something out or…

Category theory is to functional/declarative programming what design patterns are to OO programming. Patterns for decomposing problems and composing solutions. To ask “How is it useful?” Is to ask “How are design patterns useful in OO?”. But you already know the answer… Is there an advantage over just inventing your own vocabulary? Yeah! You don’t have to reinvent 70+ years of Mathematics, or teach your language to o…

Post by larve » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 3:46 AM UTC

shakow wrote: post #171

mrkeen wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I always feel these posts are filled with category theory jargon The 80/20 rule really applies here. Most of the time there's only a few key type classes that people use. Pretty much just Monad, Monoid, Applicative, Functor. If you grok those, then what people say makes a lot more sense. > Can anyone give me a practical applied way in which category theory is a benefit to your design Monad is probably the best exam…

Looks like to the hard part is ‶handl[ing] all the locking and concurrency″ with a pretty interface; that it satisfies the definition of a monad is a convenience because the `do` keyword requires it, but so would it be if it satisfied any other one, wouldn't it?

   const transfer = (x, from, to, onSuccess, onError) => {
      return getAccountMoney(from, (f) => {
         if (f  {
                 return setAccountMoney(to, t+x, () => {
                     return setAccountMoney(from, f-x, onSuccess, onError);
                 }, onError);
             }, onError);
         }, onError);
     }
   }

Post by larve » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 3:52 AM UTC

charcircuit wrote: post #173

ukj wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Category theory is to functional/declarative programming what design patterns are to OO programming. Patterns for decomposing problems and composing solutions. To ask “How is it useful?” Is to ask “How are design patterns useful in OO?”. But you already know the answer… Is there an advantage over just inventing your own vocabulary? Yeah! You don’t have to reinvent 70+ years of Mathematics, or teach your language to o…

>You don’t have to reinvent 70+ years of Mathematics What do those 70 years of mathematics do for me as a software engineer? >or teach your language to other people before you can have a meaningful design discussion. It's the other way around. Most engineers will have no clue what you are saying.

Post by barbariangrunge » Thu, Dec 01, 2022, 4:02 AM UTC

klodolph wrote: post #147

i_am_toaster wrote: post #21

I would be willing to drink the kool-aid if I saw it being used in a practical way. I always feel these posts are filled with category theory jargon without ever explaining why any of the jargon is relevant or useful. I’ve even watched some applied category theory courses online and have yet to feel I’ve gained anything substantive from them. However, as I started off with, I’m always willing to try something out or…

I’m a math major. I learned category theory in school. I think of category theory as an easy way to remember things. If some concept can be expressed as category theory, it can often be expressed in a very simple way that’s easy to remember. However, if you try to teach math using category theory from the beginning, it feels a little like trying to teach literature to someone who can’t read yet. Anything directly use…