On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 11:38 PM, Joachim Durchholz <j...@durchholz.org> wrote: > Am 15.02.2012 21:34, schrieb Aaron Meurer: > >> Is category theory used outside category theory? > > > It is, in some functional programming languages. > In Haskell, there's an ADT that is called "monad", and it is supposed to be > derived from the monads in category theory. Some people are working on > something that is called an "arrow", which is supposed to derive from CT > arrows in the same way.
Yes, right, I can't imagine how I could have forgotten to mention that, given that I'm a fan of functional programming and Haskell in particular :-( Monads are among fundamental things in Haskell; for example, they allow describing imperative programming in a purely functional way. > I take that as a sign that CT is in fact more generally useful, but since > very few people really understand it, it is hard to actually use it. Yes, I somehow forgot to state that as well :-( > Something like SymPy supporting CT would help CT. Yes, and I think I did mention that having CT-related software will be of great help to people learning CT. > The remaining question being, as it seems, whether having CT support would > help SymPy. Because I haven't managed to find anything CT-related in other mathematical software, I believe that CT in SymPy will bring SymPy ahead a bit. Automating the work with commutative diagrams is of the same importance as automating symbolic computations: it would make the life of category theorist a *lot* easier; so, whoever offers this possibility, will be given many thanks. The question now reduces to *how many* people are working with CT. From what I've heard, CT is slowly spreading, therefore, I expect that the number of people interested in it will be increasing, be it slowly. My judgement may be biased, though. Sergiu -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sympy" group. To post to this group, send email to sympy@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sympy+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sympy?hl=en.
