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Brian Beckman: Don't fear the Monad

jasonofthel33t · lecture · Watch on YouTube

Functional programmingLogic & formal methods

What it is

Microsoft's Brian Beckman gives an hour-long, whiteboard-style walk through monads, building from function composition and monoids using school-level math. It is aimed at practicing programmers rather than category theorists.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN repeatedly recommends it as the clearest and most correct beginner explanation of monads, with several commenters saying it finally made them click.

  • 9 people recommended it
  • 10 different months
  • 2 strong recommendations
  • first 2012, last 2024

What HN commenters said

  1. “This video is all you, as a practicing programmer, need to know about monads and it's just 1 hour long.”

    One hour covering all a practicing programmer needs to know about monads.

    kika, 2015-08 · Strong recommendation · in “Frege: A Haskell-Like Language for the JVM”

  2. “Here's a nice video that explains monads fairly simply”

    Fairly simple explanation of monads as composable computations.

    chongli, 2012-12 · Recommendation · in “Monads are a Class of Hard Drugs (2008)”

  3. “I found this introduction to the concepts of functional programming (functional composition) to be useful”

    Useful introduction to functional composition concepts for newcomers.

    emotionalcode, 2014-10 · Recommendation · in “On becoming an expert C programmer”

  4. “This whole video is worth watching”

    Whole talk worth watching; includes simple monoid overview.

    l4mbda, 2015-03 · Recommendation · in “Understanding Monoids using F#”

  5. “it helped me in understanding the use case of monad and ultimately monad”

    Helped commenter understand the use case of monads.

    zabi_rauf, 2015-05 · Recommendation · in “Monads in Elixir”

  6. “Brian Beckman did a nice intro video to this at MS Channel 9 a few years back.[1]”

    Nice intro to monoids and function composition.

    RossBencina, 2016-12 · Recommendation · in “What Is Abstract Algebra? [video]”

  7. “For a more soft introduction to the concepts this channel 9 video is probably a bit better”

    Softer introduction to monad concepts than the papers.

    mitchty, 2018-05 · Recommendation · in “Monads for functional programming (1995) [pdf]”

  8. “I found Brian Beckman's video Don't Fear the Monad was extremely helpful for understanding monads as a practical user.”

    Helped understand monads as a practical user without category theory.

    omginternets, 2022-06 · Recommendation · in “The Lazy Monad”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: monads, functional programming, function composition, monoids, haskell

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