Category Theory for Programming
Programming Languages
2026-03-09 v2 Category Theory
Abstract
In these lecture notes, we give a brief introduction to some elements of category theory. The choice of topics is guided by applications to functional programming. Firstly, we study initial algebras, which provide a mathematical characterization of datatypes and recursive functions on them. Secondly, we study monads, which give a mathematical framework for effects in functional languages. The notes include many problems and solutions.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2209.01259,
title = {Category Theory for Programming},
author = {Benedikt Ahrens and Kobe Wullaert},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2209.01259},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
Source code and latest version available from https://github.com/benediktahrens/CT4P