Re: Applications for Category Theory

[categories <cat-dist@mta.ca>]

Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 11:24:40 +0100
From: Don Sannella <dts@dcs.ed.ac.uk>

Daniel Yoder wrote:
> [...] are there any attempts to map category theory
> (or type theory or set theory -- I am not sure where the boundaries are)
> 
> to applications (versus theory per se), roughly analagous to Z or VDM,
> that might be comprehensible to somewhat without the formal framework?
> If not, is there a sequence of study you would recommend for proceeding?

Maybe you will find the following paper useful:

   D. Sannella and A. Tarlecki.  Essential concepts of algebraic
   specification and program development.  Formal Aspects of
   Computing, to appear (1997).

   Abstract: The main ideas underlying work on the model-theoretic
   foundations of algebraic specification and formal program
   development are presented in an informal way.  An attempt is made
   to offer an overall view, rather than new results, and to focus on
   the basic motivation behind the technicalities presented elsewhere.

   http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/dts/pub/concepts.{dvi,ps,pdf}

The presentation is intended to be accessible to "ordinary" computer
scientists.  If you find the approach attractive and want to look at
the technical details, follow the many references given in the paper
(most of the papers by me are available electronically in
http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/dts/pub/).  These details are phrased in
terms of simple concepts from category theory, universal algebra and
logic.

Regards,

Don Sannella
Univ. of Edinburgh
dts@dcs.ed.ac.uk