I like this comment because it helps illustrate the subtlety of monads as they apply to programming.<p>I think mode C# programmers would likely think of &#x27;;&#x27; and &#x27;??&#x27; as syntax, and who is thinking of &#x27;no-op&#x27; as anything!?<p>But if you were in haskell this would not be syntax, but just functions on an instance of the Monad type class.<p>Haskell could easily add some sugar to make these constructs syntax as well, but it would just be sugar -- and that is where the power, and confusion I think arises when most programmers think about monads.