F#

Chris Mattera

Outline
History of F#
Resistance to F#
Why use F#?
Setting up
Demonstration of F#
F# for president 2008
F# takes over the world

Don Syme
Microsoft Research

http://research.microsoft.com/~dsyme/

Don Syme
Microsoft Research
Project 7
brought together Microsoft and several
academic groups to target languages at
the .NET Common Language Runtime and
to get these languages working together.
Many aspects of the design of F# are the
direct result of involvement in Project 7.

http://research.microsoft.com/~dsyme/

Don Syme
Microsoft Research
F#
(ef sharp) syntax-compatible OCaml
variant for the CLR

http://research.microsoft.com/~dsyme/

Don Syme
Microsoft Research
F# is gaining popularity
An attempt at world domination?

http://research.microsoft.com/~dsyme/

Don Syme
Microsoft Research

You can see it in his eyes

F# is gaining popularity
An attempt at world domination?

http://research.microsoft.com/~dsyme/

Functional - way of the future

Creeping in to the mainstream
C#
Visual Basic
Generics
On November 2007, F# joined supported .NET languages

DisFunctional programmers
I write Windows applications!
Integration
XML Parsing, database access
Whine to mommy

DisFunctional programmers
F# runs as an external tool inside of Visual Studio
some of the seamlessness that developers get with C# or Visual
Basic is missing
F# also lacks ASP.NET page designer support

Resistance is Futile
"many languages, one platform
safe concurrent programs
discourages the use of null values and encourages the use of
immutable data structures
more succinct
dynamic language

Setting up
Go here and download it research.microsoft.com/fsharp/fsharp.aspx
Now install it
Good.
Now open up Visual Studio and make an F# project.
What do you mean you dont have Visual Studio?

Go fly a kite.
For interpreter, check out fsi.exe in the bin directory.

Hello you

Sources

Msdn f#
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc164244.aspx
More about what M$ has to say
http://research.microsoft.com/fsharp/fsharp.aspx

F# Manual
http://research.microsoft.com/fsharp/manual/ml-compat.aspx
Quicktour of the F# manual
http://research.microsoft.com/fsharp/manual/quicktour.aspx#QuickTourLists
Some blog
http://weblogs.asp.net/podwysocki/archive/2008/03/21/adventures-in-f-f-101part-6-lazy-evaluation.aspx
Some blog 2
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/fsharp_journal/free/introduction.html
Dons page
http://research.microsoft.com/~dsyme/