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