Subject: categories: Please help set up course

From: Steve Stevenson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2001 09:26:01 -0400 (EDT)

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