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Microsoft To Allow Code Contributions To F#
An anonymous reader writes "The F# programming language team has been providing source code releases for years, but all contributions to the core implementation were internal. Microsoft is now changing that. They've announced that they'll be accepting code contributions from the community for the core F# language, the compiler, library, and Visual F# tools. They praised the quality of work currently being done by the F# community: 'The F# community is already doing high-quality, cross-platform open engineering using modern tools, testing methodology and build processes. Some particularly active projects include the Visual F# Power Tools, FSharp.Data, F# Editing Support for Open Editors, the Deedle DataFrame library and a host of testing tools, web tools, templates, type providers and other tools.' Microsoft is actively solicited bug fixes, optimizations, and library improvements."
I got in trouble with Personnel for suggesting we "F# our stack".
Table-ized A.I.
When they discontinue F# in five years, you can link back to this with an "I told you so."
What corporation is this and what have you done with Microsoft?
is it?
"let" statements -- really?
And the selling feature is list comprehension? Looks like they are trying to go into Haskells direction.
Testimonials say it's better than C# for data analysis?
Well, that train has left the station, with R, Python (and Julia) being available. This can not be won by languages, but with high-quality statistics / visualisation / machine learning libraries.
License is Apache v2 by the way.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
I always thought that # was pronounced "rap." Now I see that it should be pronounced "uck."
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
I like playing in F major, but I like coding in F#
Please pardon my ignorance. Is it what I think it is? I mean "F*** Sharp" or something like that.
Don't F'ing cut yourself.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
"When I read commentary about suggestions for where C should go, I often think back and give thanks that it wasn't developed under the advice of a worldwide crowd." (Dennis Ritchie)
Wake up.
Is C# so broken that they need to replace it? What advantages does F# offer over C#? Will F# replace C#? Or is F# just an open source iteration of C#?
If you had told me back more than a decade ago that Microsoft would be supporting a commercial version of a language based on ML, OCAML and Haskell, I'd shook my head in complete disbelief. But, here we are, and this is great news as it allows for more engagement from the Haskell and other functional programming communities.
F#, like it's other ML-based dialects, is amazing for solving certain problems in a expressive and concise manner. Of course, it's a powerful language that can leads to abuses. And, don't get me wrong, the additional constructs for full .Net interoperability complicate the language a bit compared to Haskell. But, it is still a joy to use when you can.
Frankly, if there was local F# work, I'd jump on it in a heartbeat. I've even considered trying to convince a couple of local shops to give it a try for some advanced projects.
Good to hear that Microsoft is moving toward open-source. It seems high-level management's perspective has changed. I have played with F# and loved it especially because of its type-inference feature and the fact that you don't need to put curly braces (it's like python in that regard).
Still a .NET ecosystem lockin, no matter how you slice it. This announcement could be better phrased as "MS finally realizes the community is already doing their job but for free, has decided to officially let them do it".
Says the man who has never used OCaml.
If you don't have to explicitly cast integers to floating point to operate them with floating points you're not using OCaml, also if you don't need explicitly different arithmetic operators for each numerical type you're also not using OCaml, if the compiler and interpreter give you different opinions about your code, guess what? you're not using OCaml.
Not much chance of that. F# just hit #12 on the Tiobe Index, up from #69 this time last year:
http://www.tiobe.com/index.php...
Most open source projects become abandonware after about 6 months after the single developer get tire of maintaining the source or completed the semester.
Only the big projects backed by corporate $$$$ survive.
Are you aware of even one substantial program that builds without changes under both Ocaml and F#? I'm not.
I got into F# seven years ago, when it was just a research project and looked more like OCaml than a .Net language.
By 2010 it had become fully integrated into .Net, and was part of the Visual Studio standard install.
.Net world will always be its main attraction to developers, but its aggressive development by the F# team and widespread support increase its value. This latest strategic move (of opening it to open-source contribution) will accelerate its progress.
By 2014 it had evolved into a complete language with its own killer-features and it had spawned a large community, with blogs, tutorials, books and sample code. There are several significant third party add-ons, and numerous high profile adopters.
In five years time, rather than F# disappearing, it is more likely that it will be the preferred language of many developers and shops, and the early adopters will be thankful for our extra years of experience.
As for me, I'm thankful not just to have it on my CV, but because it helps me build better apps for WinRT, the web (with ASP.Net MVC) and Android. The root advantage of it being a functional language in the
I expect that in five years time, or, hopefully, just two, I won't have to mix F# (for the model) with C# (for the UI) for WinRT and ASP.NET MVC.
I'll link back to this in five years with "I told you so". I'll still be Javaman59 then.
>> Not much chance of that. F# just hit #12 on the Tiobe Index, up from #69 this time last year:
Yep. The sooner you get into it, the better off you'll be in five years time.
I'm a software visionary. I don't code.
I use F# daily for the Model (and ViewModel) in WinRT and ASP.NET MVC. Your list of advantages (from OCaml) are exactly the ones which I enjoy.
.Net libraries, Visual Studio support, and redistribution to any .Net host. F# has added some cool features (particularly Type Providers).
In a nutshell: "... let you write very concise code that was checked at compile time".
What F# adds, mostly, is the
I'm a software visionary. I don't code.
With Java 8 (just released), you have 'map', 'filter', 'reduce', etc. as part of the library updates to correspond with the new lambda support.