Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Interesting. Even if you don't care about monads per se, if you know C# 
> syntax, this explains what they are, why they are, why you want them, etc. 
> It's really little to do with functional programming after all. Or at least, 
> certainly not only functional programming.

> What is a monad, in terms an OOPL programmer would understand:

>
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2704652/monad-in-plain-english-for-the-oop-programmer-with-no-fp-background

> Also, how monads are already part of C# and you didn't know it:

> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/wesdyer/archive/2008/01/11/the-marvels-of-monads.aspx

  Even after reading those, I still don't understand what a "monad" is,
and how it's different from plain inheritance. The articles talk about
composition as if it was some kind of magic trick. I don't get it.

  It's a bit like the magical term "currying". There seems to be something
very special about it, but I just fail to understand what it is.

  In neither case do I fully understand what exactly is the problem they
are solving, how they are used or why they are useful. In fact, they are
both the strange feature that they seem to be both trivial and extremely
hard to comprehend, at the same time.

  And then some people wonder why functional programming isn't more popular.
How can it be, when it's full of trivial-sounding concepts which are, somehow,
almost impossible to understand at the same time?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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