F#

Hans Dietrich

Albert Holguin wrote:

that's what you say now, but have you heard about F#!?!?!

No, but I've heard the String class in G# is eye-popping! :)

Best wishes, Hans

JimmyRopes

Albert Holguin wrote:

i still haven't even done C#... but i'm guessing i'll have to eventually... whether i like it or not... :laugh:

I started out in assembler and c language. Then went to C++ and PHP on the side. Eventually I tried C#, and after initial reservation, liked it. Once you loose your pride, the rest is easy. :-D

Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
Think inside the box! ProActive Secure Systems
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes

Jihaad Joe

Nope, heard about F# but never seen anyone done anything with it. Apparently the people in this forum didn't really answer your original question, only snide remarks. So assume that they do not use F# either. :)

One hand clapping

JOAT MON

JimmyRopes wrote:

Once you loose your pride, the rest is easy

Is that marriage advice? :laugh:

Jack of all trades ~ Master of none.

Albert Holguin

oh its not about pride, its about time... i'm very busy with other things at this point in my life... and i'm not even a software developer, i'm an electrical engineer, so learning new software is not exactly part of my workday (or learning old software for that matter)

Albert Holguin

:laugh:

Albert Holguin

as it is i already have to know: -C/C++ (in multiple frameworks) -assembly (MIPS) -matlab scripting -perl -batch -vhdl/verilog ...i'll get to C# in due time... ;)

Lost User

It's used a lot in my organisation but I'm not involved with that team much so I've never used it myself.

Rama Krishna Vavilala

I was investigating on using it for DSL (Domain Specific Language). I am now leaning more towards Ruby.

Nemanja Trifunovic

My favorite VS add-in[^] is largely written in F#. I've learned some F# and like it (I like ML in general) but don't think it has a bright future.

utf8-cpp

Gregory Gadow

Why F#? Is there a point for Microsoft to come up with yet another programming language that (if I understand the hype correct) will compile to exactly the same intermediate language as both C# and VB?

jan lucas

I was sitting here thinking exactly the same thing about Python... [having to crash learn it to teach it to someone else tomorrow morning]

Ah.

Jason Hooper

I haven't used it yet although I've looked into it a bit. I think the point of F# is to appeal to particular programming problems that lend themselves to functional coding instead of typical procedural algorithms. So far the resources I've checked out regarding F# never address the language solely by itself, but attempt to line it up as a tool to use at the right times in order to supplement and ultimately coincide with other languages, such as C#. Haven't yet seen any major reason to spend a weekend learning it, however. It does indeed compile down to the same MSIL.

Jason

Peter Mulholland

I got a book on haskell a while back. I've started reading the intro a couple of times but it talks about a whole programming mindset change to move to functional programming, so is F# something you ca pick up over a few days?

Pete

realJSOP

What does F# give you that either C# or VB.Net doesn't already give you? Since they're all .Net languages, and they all compile to the same level, there are no optimizations that could possibly make learning F# a "good idea". I know there are some Pascal.Net implementations, as well as Cobol, but other than allowing the programmer to use old code with minor changes, there's no reason to use those languages on new projects. Unless F# closely resembles the language used in critical LOB apps, it's merely a curiosity. EDIT ========= Voting this post a 1 isn't going to change my views.

".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997

modified on Friday, April 8, 2011 4:34 PM

Nemanja Trifunovic

Gregory.Gadow wrote:

Why F#?

Why Use F#?[^]

utf8-cpp

Nemanja Trifunovic

Peter Mulholland wrote:

is F# something you ca pick up over a few days?

Not unless you already know both OCaml (the language F# is derived from) and .NET.

utf8-cpp

Nemanja Trifunovic · modified on Friday, April 8, 2011 4:34 PM

John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:

Since they're all .Net languages, and they all compile to the same level, there are no optimizations that could possibly make learning F# a "good idea".

It is not about optimizations. Some problems can be solved much easier with a language like F# than C#/VB.NET.

utf8-cpp

JimmyRopes

JOAT-MON wrote:

JimmyRopes wrote:

Once you loose your pride, the rest is easy

Is that marriage advice?

Some of the best marriage advice you can get. :-D

Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
Think inside the box! ProActive Secure Systems
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes

Solution Evangelist

ok, i'm a long time reader of cp but a first time poster. this is a post i feel strongly enough about to 'come out of the shadows' so to speak. i started using f# a long time ago, and did a tonne of development with it in the beginning. i think the major benefit of learning fsharp, and particularly the functional programming style (the value of immutability, etc) was that i began to think the same way in c#. it gave me a much better appreciation of performant code, and particularly functional linq. a few things i liked: the functional programming style, while still being able to code imperatively if you wish. the full access to the .net framework, with interoperability from c# the pipe |> forward operator the fsharp interactive (fsi.exe). for me, this has been largely surpassed by code snippets in linqpad (but i yearn for a csi.exe) including it's integration with visual studio generics (wait, they're c# you say? ...c# generics wouldn't have been the same without don syme and his team) decent support for mono. i got a lot of the great functions of f# 'out of the box' at a time when mono's framework was a generation behind .net 3.5. incidentally, if you need to target .net 2.0 for any reason, you'll get a lot of the linq-like goodness you're missing out on via f# and much, much more... if you haven't tried f#, go and get it now, try out a few of the code samples. if you have time, read robert pickering's beginning f# and don syme's expert f#. your c# will thank you for it. solutionevangelist ps: incidentally i was once in a chat with phil haack, etc, and asked the group how many people used f#. phil's estimate was zero. one person had a member at their company who'd used it for a production project. i'm somewhat disappointed at the lack of interest in f# by c#/vb.net developers when they *should* be interested. it adds a very valuable facet to the .net framework which is far more important than the likes of ironpython, etc. i am very encouraged by microsoft making it a first-class .net language with full support in their ide's, etc. i think it has a great future outside being a 'research' language (i know of a lot of financial traders doing amazing things with it in production). .net may also get the benefit of a lot of sharp people who've expressed important things (algorithms) in OCaml and we don't need to wait around for the same thing to be done in C#.