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I came here to make a joke about the real reason why was that no one understands them... but apparently everyone here does. Off to google monads for idiots...

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This talk by Douglas Crockford is quite informative:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkZFtimgAcM

Cool thanks!

I actually prefer Brian Beckman's explanation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhuHCtR3xq8

As a connoisseur of monad explanations (if not monad understanding) Crockford's talk sounds rushed. It spends a fair amount of time on setup, but when it gets to the meaty bits, it has the feeling of glossing over the details. It could be that all the essential elements are there, but they're covered to quickly to impart any comprehension.

Actually, Crockford is completely wrong in his definition. He is confusing them for functors.

I think the proper presentation of this material is as how Learn you a haskell[1] does it: functors, applicatives, monoids ... then monads but I don't think i've seen this done for other languages. Each of those structures should be learned as a set of properties, rather than something concrete (container, wrapper, sequencer, programmable semicolon) and then you see how important the applicative vs monadic style decision is for library design in haskell

[1]http://learnyouahaskell.com/functors-applicative-functors-an...

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