I don’t know that I agree with the producer of values analogy, but this is really the crux of my problem. I have trouble defining or describing abstract algebraic structures as anything other than what they are and the continual usage in programming discussions just perplexes me.

I absolutely agree with the seeming consensus that Categorical constructions can be used to find and then abstract over common patterns in programming languages and implementations. However, it’s conversations like this one that lead me to believe people have confused the implementation of a specific example of some structure with what that structure is. I doubt the co-opting of Categorical vocabulary is that big of a deal, it’s just early and I haven’t had coffee yet.