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I am a mathematician and generally bearish on category theory in programming. The best argument for it I've seen so far is that it can inform the design of your
by gunnihinn 7y ago
I am a mathematician and generally bearish on category theory in programming. The best argument for it I've seen so far is that it can inform the design of your system to give it desirable properties, like how the DVCS Pijul [1] bases its data structures on patches and its merge operation on categorical pushouts [2] -- also explained at length in a series of blog posts [3]. I found the whole idea and reasoning behing the merge system very convincing, and am not sure it could have been arrived at or explained as clearly without category theory guiding the way.
[1] https://pijul.org/ https://pijul.org/
[2] https://arxiv.org/abs/1311.3903 https://arxiv.org/abs/1311.3903
[3] https://jneem.github.io/merging/ https://jneem.github.io/merging/
- KirinDave 7y agoDoesn't this post suggest you are "bullish" rather than "bearish?" Or am I misreading it?
- gunnihinn 7y agoMaybe I miswrote it. I’ve been very unimpressed with all other crowbarrings of category theory into programming than this one. Other attempts feel like language for its own sake, while Pijul really seems like a Grothendieck-style compass bearing use of category theory. The point of using it wasn’t just language, but it really informed the design of the system.