Probably one should understand how to use monads before worrying about the do-notation. Here are some references:
I don't totally agree. You can teach monads to beginners just fine using the do-notation. Unsuprisingly its very much like teaching monads using bind. You describe a two line do-block as the basic building block for combining two actions into a single action: do { result1 <- act1 expr involving result1 building an act } show that you can nest them (expr can be another do block) do { result1 <- act1 do { result2 <- act2 expr involving result1 and result2 building an act } } and how the do-notation doesn't require you to start a new do-block for nesting of do's and let's do { result1 <- act1 let val1 <- expr resulting in a pure value result2 <- act2 expr involving result1 and result2 building an act } Then you can describe pattern matching and fail... I've had debates about what should be taught, and obviously not everyone agrees, but at the least, its possible and reasonable and understandable to teach do-notation first.
Denis
Tim Newsham http://www.thenewsh.com/~newsham/