Brent Yorgey

New blog post, "Monads are not like burritos", in which I reflect on the history of a meme and continue the process of turning into a cranky old-timer

https://byorgey.github.io/blog/posts/2025/06/16/monads-are-not-burritos.html

blog :: Brent -> [String] - Monads are not like burritos

Jun 16 at 8:41pmWeb
Show threadMark Dominus19h ago
@byorgey The meme image isn't loading for me
Show threadBrent Yorgey17h ago
@mjd Thanks, fixed!
Show threadDNA schedule18h ago
@byorgey good post! I have enjoyed the burrito explanation for years, but I always have to couch it in extra explanations, due to its inadequacies. I like to say, for example, that the cheese and salsa in the burrito get all over everything and that when you unwrap it, the contents may be unrecognizable.
Show threadSimon Tatham12h ago
@byorgey of course, your meme image isn't saying that *monads* are like burritos. It's saying something one layer of abstraction up: (bad) monad *tutorials* are like burritos, because once you've got wrapped up in one you have to unwrap yourself before you can get back to actually trying to understand monads.
Show threadBrent Yorgey8h ago
@simontatham yes, exactly!
Show threadPhilipp  11h ago

@byorgey And here's me, about to give a #haskell tutorial and on the way to work, thinking that I should definitely mention that "IO" is different than "Maybe", "List", ... because in what way would "IO String" be a container"?

Good to have come to the same conclusion.

Show threadJaro Reinders9h ago
@pmidden @byorgey To be fair, we often do say "*in* the future" and "what the future *holds*" like it is a container.
Show threadBrent Yorgey8h ago
@jaror @pmidden Well, as far as we know, the future is an IO action that must be executed exactly once.