On Oct 14, 2007, at 23:13 , Richard A. O'Keefe wrote:
(5) Precisely because it seeks generality, category theory seems difficult to "concrete thinkers". And books on category theorytend to be extremely fast-paced, so ideas which are not in themselvesparticularly esoteric (which may in fact be eminently practical) tend to be presented in a way which people trying to study by themselves have trouble with. So people can be scared off by what _ought_ to be a big help to them.
I would really like to see "category theory for the working *non*mathematician". I have essentially zero formal programming/CS- theory or mathematical training, and while sucking knowledge up like a sponge is often a good thing (especially for me as a practicing sysadmin), it does leave me at a bit of a disadvantage when you start maximally generalizing everything in sight at me, especially when you do so in esoteric mathematical language that leaves me going "buh?"
-- brandon s. allbery [solaris,freebsd,perl,pugs,haskell] [EMAIL PROTECTED] system administrator [openafs,heimdal,too many hats] [EMAIL PROTECTED] electrical and computer engineering, carnegie mellon university KF8NH _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
