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A list is a monad

(alexyorke.github.io)
153 points polygot | 1 comments | 29 Jun 25 17:53 UTC | HN request time: 0.202s | source
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mvdtnz ◴[02 Jul 25 20:22 UTC] No.44448396[source]▶
The amount of people who tie themselves into knots to understand this pointless concept is very funny to me. I am 16 years into a successful software engineering career without learning what a monad is an it never held me back. Turns out I can use lists and optional types and all that jazz without it.

I mean really. Look at posts like this[0]. What does this give you? Nothing, in practical reality. Nothing.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44446472

replies(2): >>44448880 #>>44450924 #
1. lmm ◴[03 Jul 25 02:03 UTC] No.44450924[source]▶
> I am 16 years into a successful software engineering career without learning what a monad is an it never held me back.

How would you know? That's the classic Blub Paradox.

Being able to write a custom monad and then leverage the vast array of libraries that already exist has helped me deliver functionality to end users quicker, more maintainably, and with lower defect rates. They don't let you do anything that you couldn't do by writing it out longhand. But just like using generic container libraries instead of writing a specific container for every type you want to handle collections of, they're extremely helpful.