Monads According to a Robot

To start the new year, I thought it would be fun to spend some time messing around with the item that's all the rage right now - Chat GPT, the newest chatbot published by Open AI.

This chatbot can provide decent answers to most questions you throw at it, similar in concept to Google. However, instead of simply linking to other pages, it can provide fairly detailed and lengthy responses to the question, which Google cannot do. It also does a good job of maintaining conversational context, which is well beyond Google's abilities right now.

So I thought it would be interesting to ask it about a few Haskell-related topics. This week, we'll start with Monads, one of the trickier subjects involved with learning Haskell. I wanted to see how its suggestions line up with my Monads Series.

So the next three sections consist of me asking a question to Chat GPT, and its (often lengthy) response.

What is a Monad?

A monad is a concept from functional programming, which involves structuring programs as a series of computations that are strung together and can be combined in various ways. It's a way of abstracting out certain patterns of computation and making it easier to reuse and compose code. Monads are a bit of an advanced topic, and can be difficult to understand at first, but they can be very powerful once you get the hang of them.

What are Monads used for?

Monads are a powerful concept from functional programming that can be used to structure programs in a way that makes them easier to write, understand, and maintain.

At their core, monads are a way of abstracting out common patterns of computation and making them more modular and reusable. This allows you to write code that is more flexible and easier to work with, and can help you avoid common pitfalls and mistakes.

One of the key benefits of using monads is that they allow you to write code that is more declarative and abstract, rather than focusing on the details of how the computation is actually performed. This can make your code more concise and easier to read, and can help you avoid getting bogged down in the specifics of how the code works.

Another advantage of monads is that they make it easier to combine and compose different pieces of code, allowing you to build larger, more complex programs from smaller, more modular components. This can help you write more flexible and reusable code, and can make it easier to write programs that are modular, maintainable, and easy to understand.

Overall, monads are a powerful tool that can help you write better, more elegant code. They may take some time to understand and get used to, but once you get the hang of them, they can be a valuable asset in your programming toolkit.

How do I use Monads in Haskell?

To use monads in Haskell, you first need to have a basic understanding of the Haskell programming language and how it works. Once you have a handle on the basics, you can start learning about monads and how to use them in your programs.

One way to get started with monads in Haskell is to read through some tutorials or blog posts that introduce the concept and provide examples of how to use monads in your code. There are many resources available online that can help you learn about monads and how to use them in Haskell, including tutorials, blog posts, and videos.

Another way to learn about monads is to experiment with using them in your own programs. This can be a great way to get a feel for how monads work and how they can help you write better code. You can try writing simple programs that use monads, and see how they help you structure your code in a more modular and reusable way.

Overall, the best way to learn how to use monads in Haskell is to dive in and start experimenting with them in your own code. The more you use monads and see how they work, the better you will understand them and be able to apply them in your programs.

My Thoughts

I often describe a monad as a "computational context", and this idea is clearly seen in the bot's response. It talks about "abstracting patterns of computation", which is more or less the same thing. Its response also emphasizes some elements that get lost when we get too far into the weeds of a tutorial, like the modularity and reusability of code. Perhaps I'll go back and re-emphasize those pieces in my own tutorials.

The general response for "how do I use monads" is also good. Reading tutorials helps, and writing your own programs is ultimately essential. I'll link once again to my tutorial series, which contains some code examples you can try for yourself. For more detailed examples that allow you to work on your own project code, you can also try out my two monad-related courses, Making Sense of Monads, and Effectful Haskell.

Limitations

Unfortunately, the bot does a surprisingly poor job providing links to such tutorials. It provided me with several examples of blog posts that sounded very convincing, like "All About Monads by Brent Yorgey", and then it would link me to Brent Yorgey's blog page with a URL that contained the title "All About Monads" from 2009 or so. But the link was broken, suggesting the specific post of that title never existed. (Incidentally, the Haskell Wiki contains a page for All About Monads, but it doesn't seem as though Brent Yorgey was a contributor).

This process repeated with 3-4 different suggestions. It would have a monad related title, the name of a notable Haskell practitioner, and a link that seemed link it should work. And yet the link would be broken. In one case, it gave the title of Monads for the Working Haskell Programmer but attributed this work to Bartosz Milewski (instead of Theodore Newell, plainly listed as the author at the top of the page) along with an incorrect link (I found the correct link after googling the title).

I would have expected the bot to check links before supplying them, so this was definitely surprising behavior.

I also tried to push the boundaries and see if it could write a code-based tutorial for me. It would start writing some promising looking code, but eventually the whole thing would get deleted! Perhaps the code was getting too long and I was getting rate limited, I'm not sure. I'll experiment more with having it write code in the coming weeks.