monad

1) A type of functor used in category theory in mathematics. Category theory describes patterns in mathematical functions.

2) A kind of constructor used in functional programming to structure programs that include sequenced operations. The primary use of monads in this context is to express input/output (I/O) operations without using language features. In general, however, monads are useful whenever a programmer wants to perform a purely functional computation separate from a related computation performed apart from it.

3) The original code name for Microsoft's PowerShell, an object-oriented programming language and interactive command line shell for Microsoft Windows with built-in, flexible scripting abilities.

4) A symbol used by ancient Greek philosophers, including Plato, Pythagoras and Aristotle, to describe God or the totality of all beings. Metaphysical and theological theory describes "monism" as the concept of "one essence."

Learn more about Dynamic .NET programming languages

Do you have something to add to this definition? Let us know. Send your comments to techterms@whatis.com

More resources from around the web: - For more about monad use in functional programming, see Wikipedia's entry. - Learn more about monads and monadic programming in Haskell at haskell.org. - For more about monad use in category theory, see Wikipedia's entry. - Yale.edu hosts a list of books about monads, functional programming and Haskell. - WhatIs.com's blog features a number of entertaining videos from the Catsters that explain monads.

FILE EXTENSION AND FILE FORMAT LIST File Extension and File Format List: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z #

RELATED CONTENT Some of the Zen of Volta Volta is a methodology allowing developers to create apps without regard to eventual deployment, and to declaratively partition Web application... F# Programming Fast Guide F# is a functional programming language that runs on the CLR and the .NET Framework. This Fast Guide links to resources that introduce and explain F#. Book excerpt: An introduction to DSL tools In recent years, Microsoft has asserted that there is special value in using DSLs. This chapter introduces the concepts of domain-specific...

RELATED GLOSSARY TERMS Terms from Whatis.com − the technology online dictionary IronPython  (SearchWinDevelopment.com) IronPython is an altered version of the Python programming language that runs on top of Microsoft's .NET Framework. The language combines Python's...