Haskellians, Some monads come with take-out options, e.g. - List - Set In the sense that if unit : A -> List A is given by unit a = [a], then taking the head of a list can be used to retrieve values from inside the monad. Some monads do not come with take-out options, IO being a notorious example. Some monads, like Maybe, sit on the fence about take-out. They'll provide it when it's available. Now, are there references for a theory of monads and take-out options? For example, it seems that all sensible notions of containers have take-out. Can we make the leap and define a container as a monad with a notion of take-out? Has this been done? Are there reasons for not doing? Can we say what conditions are necessary to ensure a notion of take-out? Best wishes, --greg -- L.G. Meredith Managing Partner Biosimilarity LLC 806 55th St NE Seattle, WA 98105 +1 206.650.3740 http://biosimilarity.blogspot.com