Programming with Categories - Lecture 0

Lecturers: Brendan Fong, Bartosz Milewski, David Spivak

Summary: In this course we explain how category theory—a branch of mathematics known for its ability to organize the key abstractions that structure much of the mathematical universe—has become useful for writing elegant and maintainable code. In particular, we'll use examples from the Haskell programming language to motivate category-theoretic constructs, and then explain these constructs from a more abstract and inclusive viewpoint. Hands-on programming exercises will be used to demonstrate categorical ideas like "the universal property of products" in working Haskell code.

We will assume no background knowledge on behalf of the student, starting from scratch on both the programming and mathematics.

(Video: Paolo Perrone.)

[RobertChew]

Thank you MIT, YouTube. This is what the internet is for ...

[Our_Joyful_Journeys]

Greetings from South Africa. Thanks to everyone who made these lectures possible.

[Ruslanmsv]

Greetings from Russia and thanks for free video lectures!

[zzantares]

Thank you!! I've been waiting for something like this for years. Greetings from México!

[andreeas]

Greetings from Romania, thank you so much for uploading the lectures, looking forward for the next, with great excitement!

[jorgwinter]

fantastic to have these lectures here.... great topic!
love Haskell, greetings from germany

[nmcborst]

Greetings from the Netherlands, great expectations, great excitement, thank you for doing this.

[Dion]

Greetings from Brazil. Thanks for uploading the lecture. I'll check it everyday =)

[ocschwar]

Glad to see these come up so quickly, as I'll have to miss the next two lectures. Many thanks!

[jordgidget]

Greetings from ASU! Undergrad in Computational Math here and very excited for this lecture series.

[nilpinter]

Thank you very much for sharing this course. You are amazing! Cheers from Spain.

[hakansarbyk]

Greetings from Turkey! Thanks for uploading so quickly!

[JacobAndresen]

Amazing! Thanks for uploading this! Greetings from Copenhagen.

[eriklintsev]

Awesome! Can't believe my eyes, thank you guys!

[jarnleikr]

Hello from Norway! Looking forward to both Category Theory and Haskell.

[favourotiger]

Thank you very much MIT, from Nigeria.

[Bratjuuc]

I wish I had the time to study these lectures.

[AvanaVana]

Thanks for posting this!

"The closest thing to a dumb question is if you think secretly that your question is going to make you look smart."
😂 ^ I experienced this all the time where I studied. Such eye rolling! Much annoying.

[christopherhume]

You should cite the Curry-Howard Isomorphism, a.k.a., the Formula As Types Idea (FATI). While the use of Category Theory is relatively new, the F.A.T.I. has been well known and predates the advent of Computers (apart from Babbage's Analytical Engine.)

[xuan-gottfriedyang]

category theory can be seen/thought as the abstraction of functional programming. But what is the abstraction of imperative resp. object oriented programming?