Post author here. You're asking the right questions! There's a tutorial already that does this very well: http://blog.sigfpe.com/2006/08/you-could-have-invented

Post author here. You're asking the right questions! There's a tutorial already that does this very well: http://blog.sigfpe.com/2006/08/you-could-have-invented-monads-and.html http://blog.sigfpe.com/2006/08/you-could-have-invented-monad... My goal was just to provide a gentle introduction.