From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/1946 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Steve Stevenson Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Please help set up course Date: Fri, 4 May 2001 09:26:01 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <15090.44521.498991.254345@merlin.cs.clemson.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1241018224 1342 80.91.229.2 (29 Apr 2009 15:17:04 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:17:04 +0000 (UTC) To: categories@mta.ca Original-X-From: rrosebru@mta.ca Fri May 4 14:02:48 2001 -0300 Return-Path: Original-Received: (from Majordom@localhost) by mailserv.mta.ca (8.11.1/8.11.1) id f44GbQA18369 for categories-list; Fri, 4 May 2001 13:37:26 -0300 (ADT) X-Authentication-Warning: mailserv.mta.ca: Majordom set sender to cat-dist@mta.ca using -f X-Mailer: VM 6.72 under 21.1 (patch 11) "Carlsbad Caverns" XEmacs Lucid Original-Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk X-Keywords: X-UID: 14 Original-Lines: 23 Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:1946 Archived-At: Good morning, y'all: I really need some help in setting up a reading course. The course is for computer science majors and faculty who are very interested and motivated but lack a strong background in mathematics. The goal the group has is to be able to read the denotational semantics literature. Now, as you know, this is quite an undertaking. How can I quickly give them some background? My first thought is to tie categorical concepts to something they all might know. Is there an article, book, or sequence of same that takes a less than formal approach to concepts and then comes back with the formality? I call this a "rosetta stone" approach. I've read Pierce's *Basic Category Theory for Computer Scientists*. What I think I need is something that would serve as an introduction (to even Pierce) as to why computer scientists should want to know about pushouts, pullbacks, and some of the other structures that don't seen to be obviously necessary. Any guidance would be gratefully accepted! best regards, steve