Programming Language researchers already know a bunch of basic category theory, but the rest of us Computer Scientists tend to be out of the loop when it comes to this basic language of math. I've been reticent to take any more math courses because of my near-complete lack of knowledge of the topic.
A colleague of mine recently introduced me to Category Theory by Steve Awodey (at CMU). A computer scientist like myself, he was frustrated with Categories for the Working Mathematician by Saunders Mac Lane (I also found CftWM to be impenetrable), and found Category Theory to be a much more digestible reference. So far it looks pretty good and is very readable. It's aimed at non-mathematicians, which certainly helps.
Has anyone else read this book and found it useful?
I really enjoyed Awodey's Category Theory, and think it's a worthy successor to CftWM. I find it slightly heavy on the logic interpretations though, and can very warmly recommend Barr & Wells: Category Theory for the Computing Sciences for people from a CS background — B&W consistently produce CS-y applications through the entire book, making it more relatable.
ReplyDeletei'm sure you've also heard of the catsters...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/user/TheCatsters
@Jacob - I think I have heard of the Catsters, I just forgot.
ReplyDelete@michie - Thanks for the recommendation! BTW, that Awodey recommendation was from a recent collaborator of yours that visited here yesterday. :-)