Customer Reviews

Categories and Computer Science (Cambridge Computer Science Texts)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In September 1997 we needed a book on Category Theory for our first year undergraduate class in the B.A. (Mod) honors degree in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) at the University of Dublin, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland. This book was at that time the only one that satisfied our requirements. Now we have chosen (Lawvere and Schanuel 1997) in addition. It is our opinion that one ought to start with the latter, a most excellent introduction of great profundity, and, for application to computing, use the Walters text. It is hard to beat this combination for a first year undergraduate course, as far as we know at this time (Sept.98)

The Book begins with the plain definition of a category, as does any other book. However, it points out a category as a kind of (abstract) Data Type. Distributive Categories are discussed as a milestone for developing the basic concepts in computation, as those of imperative programs and Data Types. The Book has a lot of examples (from computation) and the author took care of drawning conclusions from them before develop an abstract framework. The concepts of automata and automata with inputs are shown (the later in a functorial category). Grammars and Graphs are discussed as well. The book has a very good introduction to the concept of freeness and adjunctions. Its latest chapter treats the computational category theory in the context of Knuth-Bendix procedure. The exercises present in the book are great !! They guide the student gradualy into deeper questions without any frustation. There are very easy exercises which have the only goal of finding out ones undersating of a new definition.