For the love of F#
Enter F#, the ideal middle ground that I’ve always wanted. F# is a functional programming language from Microsoft Research which sits on top of the .NET framework and as all other .NET languages are, can easily integrate with its other less functional cousins. The best feature of F# for me has been it’s a gentle yet intellectually stimulating introduction to the world of .NET programming that I’ve so cautiously eschewed so far. The thing with learning a new language is not learning new syntax. Anyone can do that over a weekend. The hard part is learning its idiosyncrasies – the libraries that let you do real things, the idiomatic usage of language constructs and the external peculiarities that go with the language be it make files or the umpteen build systems that go with C++ or ant and maven with java or the comfortable world of visual studio which makes you believe building is just one keystroke away.
Learning F#, as obscure as it is, means that I will not be spending a lot of time learning the massive libraries that go with the .NET world again and again, but just once. I can just as easily use them in a different world. Code Reuse is a big deal, but something that’s much bigger is the knowledge reuse you get with platforms like .NET.
So, how does one get started with F#? Well, thanks to Microsoft, it has been made absurdly simple. The first thing for anyone programming within the windows environment is Visual Studio. You can get the free Visual Studio Integrated shell here and F# here.
Once that’s setup, then you can hack away.
Signing off,
Vishnu Vyas