Here is an excerpt from the introduction to my recent write-up on monads.

Monads in functional programming provide a framework for aspect-aware computations to be composed to build higher-level aspect-aware computations. An aspect-aware computation is some basic computation that has been enhanced, augmented, or, more generally, just transformed, to become aware of some generic concern.

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I have found that the introduction a few key pieces of terminology, and the pictorial representation of some of the basic concepts of programming with monads, have enhanced my grasp of the idea of a monad, and my conversations about it with others. In this article, I’ll share some of that terminology and pictures by using them to retrace the development of the idea of a monad.

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