Monads are monoids in the category of endofunctors
Wait, a functor is just a pure unary function? And an endofunctor is just one of those where the argument type and return type are the same? This could have been explained to me years ago, in five minutes?<p>Sometimes it makes me mad that so much confusion (and as another commenter put it, gatekeeping) has been sown in FP circles through the invention of pointlessly-obfuscated terminology for everything (and through - among many in those circles - a lack of interest in connecting the very simple dots that would allow masses of people to understand these concepts). It&#x27;s like when the medieval Catholic Church refused to print a bible in anything but Latin so that they&#x27;d remain the sole authority on its content.<p>Kudos to the OP for cutting through some of that, but shame on those who maintain this status quo.<p>Edit: assuming it really is (roughly) that simple. Some in the comments have suggested parts of the OP were wrong (assuming they aren&#x27;t just being pedantic), so I&#x27;m curious to see discussion.