Another really good functional (as in related to how they work) explanation of monads: http://adit.io/posts/2013-04-17-functors,_applicatives,_and_monads_in_pi

Another really good functional (as in related to how they work) explanation of monads: http://adit.io/posts/2013-04-17-functors,_applicatives,_and_monads_in_pictures.html http://adit.io/posts/2013-04-17-functors,_applicatives,_and_... It's somewhat more than a monad explanation -- it covers functors and applicatives, and is somewhat haskell specific, but it was one of the guides that really clicked for me when I was trying to grok monads