Hilarious, but it is so true. This is exactly what happens in most cases. How would you sell F# to your boss?
Oct 102011
Sep 202011
Awesome presentation by Bob, who isn’t afraid to blaze technology trails, and he has the arrows in the back to prove it. You may remember him from his awesome PyObjC efforts, and his latest triumph is using Erlang to power an ad network for flash games. Listen in as he introduces the language+environment and waxes poetic about hot code reloading, fault-tolerant runtimes, concurrency oriented programming and function pattern matching.
Erlang isn’t my favorite language, but after watching this, that might just change. Good to watch too when you’re learning F#, about mailboxes and various other concepts.
Apr 232011
A free e-book on OCaml – “Think OCaml – How to Think Like a Computer Scientist” is available for reading at thinkocaml.com
How to Think Like a Computer Scientist is an introductory programming textbook based on the OCaml language. It is a modified version of Think Python by Allen Downey. It is intended for newcomers to programming and also those who know some programming but want to learn programming in the function-oriented paradigm, or those who simply want to learn OCaml.
OCaml is a powerful high-level programming language with a large emphasis on speed and efficiency. You can find out more about the language by visiting caml.inria.fr.
This text leverages the power of the language to teach the reader important concepts in computer science and software design, with an emphasis in experimentation and self-directed learning.
Mar 042011
A lot of people ask me why they should use F#, and when they should use it. Microsoft has posted a white paper about “F# in the Enterprise” giving some case studies and examples of where F# is being used.
In short, F# allows accelerated analytical and parallel .NET development. Great article, however I wish there were more case studies outside the financial industry, but I guess that’s where F# feels most comfortable at for now.
Check it out: F# in the Enterprise
Feb 202011
One of the key concepts of functional programming is compositionality – the fact that we can build complex software using several basic “building blocks” and just a few ways of combining them. In this talk, Tomas Petricek demonstrate how we can teach this concept using F#. We’ll start with a basic example of this approach that even high-school students can easily understand – numerical expressions. Then we’ll move to more exciting examples of using library for composing 3D graphics. We’ll see that creating a fractal tree is not much more complicated than calculating the area of a triangle.
Check out more talks at Community for F#.
Jan 172011
Have you ever wanted to play with F#, but didn’t want to spend the time getting set up? Now you can try out F# right in your browser. Just go to http://tryfs.net/ and start typing out your F# program. This is very similar to Try Ruby – http://tryruby.org/.
Nov 262010
Here’s a great set of resources for a course, Programs as Data, from IT University of Copenhagen that teaches Programming Language Concepts for Software Developers using F#, among other languages like C# and Java. More information regarding this course can be found here.
The first few chapters of Programming Language Concepts for Software Developers introduces some of F#’s features that shows the power of Language-Oriented Programming.
Hope you find it useful.
Sep 222010
For those living near or in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., there’s an F# in Education Workshop happening there on the 5th November 2010. The workshop will investigate F# as a possible teaching language, as well as its use in industry. A highlight will be developments in cross-platform issues. The venue is Microsoft’s vibrant New England Research and Development Centre on the scenic Charles River within reach of MIT, Harvard and Boston Universities. Register now.
Mar 162010
F# is Microsoft’s first functional programming language to be included as one of Visual Studio’s official set of languages. F# is a succinct, efficient, expressive functional/object-oriented programming language under joint development by Microsoft Developer Division and Microsoft Research.
Dr. Don Syme is a principal researcher in MSR Cambridge. He has a rich history in programming language research, design, and implementation (C# generics being one of his most recognized implementations), and is the principle creator of F#. Who better to lecture on the topic than Don? This three part series will serve as an introduction to F#, including insights into the rationale behind the history and creation of Microsoft’s newest language.
C9 Lectures: Dr. Don Syme – Introduction to F#, 1 of 3
C9 Lectures: Dr. Don Syme – Introduction to F#, 2 of 3
C9 Lectures: Dr. Don Syme – Introduction to F#, 3 of 3
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Dec 302009
Finally, all 13 chapters are done. Now I can compile them into 1 big post with all the videos. I highly recommend every developer to watch these videos even though you’ll not be writing Functional code.
Edit: I totally forgot to link back all the chapters. Click on the links on each chapter for the original page and details to download the videos.
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