Abstract

We as programmers like solving problems. But we do not like cumbersome repeating and boiler plate. However, due to side-effects, bad inputs, or inconsistent types it is sometimes necessary. Or is it?

In our attempt to answer that, I will demystify monads and we will see how monads help us with boiler plate and how they can be used to deal with impure functions in a pure manner.

We then define monad according to Haskell’s definition, where we learn about bind operators.

We will also look into Category theory and we will talk about categories, functors, and natural transformations.

Finally, we take a look at some limitations of monads in an attempt to understand why they are not as widespread as one might think.