I disagree that "far fewer people can (really) understand" functional code. It's more like far fewer people care to. Either way, that's a separate matter from w

I disagree that "far fewer people can (really) understand" functional code. It's more like far fewer people care to. Either way, that's a separate matter from whether category theory matters to programming or not. I happen to think it matters in the same way theoretical physics matters to engineering: that is, eventually engineering will make use of it, and sometimes an engineering need drives the research in the first place, but as a matter of day-to-day practice they're effectively completely separate fields. Although apparently some coders desperately want to think their glorified bit-shuffling is some deeply abstract mathematical endeavor.