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Inside Microsoft's New F# Language
robyn217 writes "There's a new language being formed in the bowels of Microsoft. Recently I got word that the language F# (pronounced F Sharp) is nearing workable stages at Microsoft Research. So, I went in for a look-see. What I found was an interesting blend of imperative (Java, C#) and functional languages(it's ML-based, too!). It looks pretty enticing to me from a computer science perspective, but I'm not sure it would fly in the professional market. I can see the ease of development that a language loosely based on ML would bring, but I can't see coders switching over in droves since it's a tough learning curve." Our previous story on F#.
F#ing Visual C++
F#ing VB.
F#ing Win32 API
A microsoft rep met with us a couple of weeks ago pushing .NET, win2k3, the whole enchilada. He mentioned they have MANY of these languages in development and are due to be released in the next year or so. They will still be pushing C# for mainstream development. The other languages will focus on niches where a modern OO language would be cumbersome.
;)
He wouldn't confirm whether they would have the X# naming convention
When developing for windoes "Microsoft F#&%", or "F#&%*!? .net" is the most common language our team uses.
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Do you relize that an F# major has 6 sharps.
But, an F# is the same as a Gb (G flat) which has as 6 flats.
Now the C# scale has 7 sharps, but it's the same as a Db (D flat) which only has 5 flats.
Most people think (D flat) instead of C#.
F# is a very bright scale. It sounds very nice on an Alto Saxophone, whereas the C# scale is a little more moody, depressed.
Maybe Microsoft is trying to back off the use of C#.
Our company has recently started to introduce .NET development alongside our core J2EE platform. One of the issues that has come up has been how useful the multi-language/single-platform support would be. Rather than taking a "best of breed" language for all development, the use of the right tool for the right job could potentially lead to interesting results - A mix of C#/ML/PROLOG/etc. as appropriate for the immesdiate task at hand. I don't think MS is far enough down the road yet to capitalise on the idea, but it's certainly an intriguing possibility - Even if it would lead to a maintenance nightmare :)
Map then applies whatever function we pass in to every member in the array (called a list in functional programming).
So, all you functional programmers, remember... a list is just another name for an array :-P
Seriously, though... I was discussing the future of programming languages with some friends and we agreed that a real step forward would be to provide features such as higher order functions in a mainstream language... could this be it?
If so then it's a little worrying... I'd rather not see any revolutionary languages come out of MS, if at all possible...
(Cambridge's Computer Science degree teaches ML followed by Java in the first year... would they switch to teaching just F# if it became popular?)
My first year CS classes were taught in ML. It's a very potent language. I especially liked the type inference system. What other languages do in templates comes naturally in ML. Our CS prof gave us an example of Quicksort in 3 lines of readable code. As an academic language ML has problems interfacing with real life systems. OcaML was a step in the right direction and MS is building F# on it. I'll certainly try this one.
F# will be learned by people when managers and not university lecturers decide that it is something that coders need to learn or even when coders decide it's necessary for something.
Stop thinking that the world is out to make you use MS products no matter what. The businesses that do the employment and the people who should be advising them (cough -you- cough) are the people who make those decisions.
Anyone learning Computer Science should in no way be gearing themselves with any particular product
Any university offering courses in computer science is doing students a dis-service if it sends them out of the institution without an MS-centric, Linux-centric or any other square peg solution to fit any hole they come across.
I always thought the aim of education and particularly any discipline that considers itself a science was to teach skills and thinking which could be applied across the field so the graduates would find themselves able to adapt to any language or equipment that they found it necessary to use.
If they can patent/trademark/copyright all the notes used in music, they will be able to own the RIAA.
The have: C#,F#
Left: A,A#,B,C,D,D#,E,F,G,G#
Can't wait for the other 10 programming languages
... the drive letters team is (still) working this one out.
As one of the posters above mentioned, python's lambda is actually borrrowed from the Functional programming world. I believe it originally gets its name from Lambda Calculus, but mathematicians will have to correct me on that. (I first saw it in Scheme, the most beautiful programming language I've ever programmed in, if not the most practical.)
If you've never done functional programming, it a different animal from imperitive programming, and if you do know python, it borrows a number of things from FP, not just lambdas. Look at python's map, apply, and reduce functions, along with list comprehensions (taken from Haskell, which I really need to learn). Although, it should be noted that python's recursion really isn't optimized for FP, but you can still do quite a few things that a functional programmer would be at home with.
no comment
Microsoft says it:
F#ism is finally back in F#ion.
I guess this means all Microsoft programmers are F#ists.
Oh well, they're only in it for the C# anyway.
Until today, both ML and Haskell had a common problem: a lack of commercial and real world interest in it and therefore a lack of real-world libraries and supporting frameworks. But now things are going to be changed.
First Ericson came with Erlang, an excelent essence of FP, LP, scripting and networking. Now M$ (I know - evil, but anyway) came with F# bringing OCaml to the real world saving from being forgotten somewhere in Inria.
What next? I think that would be Haskell, the language even more suprior to ML, with already OOP, Parallel and Cuncurrent extensions. Also I like its Functional-Logical dialect - Curry. But who will bring it to the real world? IBM?
Less is more !
One way to overcome that inertia is to provide bindings for your niche language against a major runtime - like compiling it to Java bytecode, or, in this case, IL.
Now, .NET has it's own inertia to overcome, but because it's Microsofts baby, it has alot of advantages that the language/runtime that Joe Programmer makes doesn't have.
This is interesting for a couple other reasons - it's been reported before that it should be easy to port functional languages to .NET - and that it's apparently hard to have them compile to Java (I don't know crap about functional languages, I'm just parroting here), so here's the proof of that. Also, like it or not, .NET is very big and is being very heavily pushed by the single most influential company in IT - and if you're a fan of functional languages, I don't see how this is a loss for you or why you're bitter about it.
There's a new language being formed in the bowels of Microsoft.
This may help explain Microsofts process for developing new software. How are things "formed in the bowels" anyway? A simple understanding is that good stuff is essentially chewed to pieces and then deconstructed in an acidic bath. Once the good stuff reaches the bowels then an attempt is made to remove everything that is of value. Once that has been accomplished we are, I suppose, left with a Microsoft product that is ready to (careful here now) ship (Whew! Now that was one major Freudian slip just waiting to happen....).
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As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.