I want to learn category theory. I tried different books and had several problems with them:
- Books are for mathematicians and they use a lot of examples with which I am not comfortable, like algebraic topology, advanced algebra, etc.
- Book which simplify things too much and doesn't contain any useful theorems.
I want a book which would give me a deep understanding of category theory and at the same time provide examples from the area which I am familiar with, i.e. computer science, type theory, logic, etc.
I tried the following books so far:
- Basic Category Theory for Computer Scientists (Foundations of Computing). I was able to understand well 60% of the book but I didn't get intuition of category theory, the book contains too few examples.
- Categories and Computer Science. The book is too basic for me.
Best Answer
Read "Category Theory" by Steve Awodey. It is a rigorous introduction to category theory (goes as far as adjoints, some monads, Yoneda, ... ) which intentionally does NOT include examples that only a maths major can understand. Instead, its examples are drawn from logic, lambda calculus, etc.