Robert's Strange F# Blog

Somasegar Announces Productization of F#

2007-10-17T13:31:00Z

Somasegar, the head of the Developer Division at Microsoft, has announced the productization of F#. Read more about it here.

F# on Hansel Minutes

2007-08-10T13:54:00Z

Listen to yours truely bang on about F# for 36 minutes and 22 seconds :)
http://hanselminutes.com/default.aspx?showID=94

Foundations of F# - Finally here!

2007-06-05T18:56:00Z

Just a very quick note to say "Foundation of F#" has finally arrived. Am I pleased with it? Make up you own minds:
http://www.strangelights.com/blog/archive/2007/06/05/1586.aspx

Foundations of F# - First Review

2007-05-29T07:17:00Z

I'm very pleased announce that Can Erten has written the first customer review for "Foundations of F#" on amazon.com, also repeated on his blog.

Can writes:

""Foundations of F#" is a great introductory book for F# with some advanced samples. For those who are unfamiliar with functional programming, this book gives the notions of functional programming in all aspects while giving samples in the greatest platform with great language F#.
This book includes functional, imperative and object oriented programming paradigms giving great samples. Robert Pickering also focuses to the imperative programmers by giving the usage differences in F#. He introduces a wide range F# data structures from simple arrays to quotations with great explanations.
This book gives a lot of information on .NET Framework including the latest additions .NET Framework 3.0 and 3.5. Samples with LINQ and Windows Presentation Foundation fulfil this area. If you are unfamiliar with .NET Framework, don't worry this book gives what you need to know about .NET Framework in many different areas including network programming, web programming, database programming, and windows programming with clear and explanatory samples using relevant screenshots. The samples are unique and useful, it's not the examples that you can find on the web, and it's more specialised and focused on techniques specific to F#
Personally I most liked Language Oriented Programming chapter which gives very specific features and usage tricks to F# to make the most of the language. It's a must have book in your bookshelf if you are interested in functional programming on .NET Framework"

I like to say a big thank you to Can for taking the time to do this. Thanks Can!

Foundations of F# - Coming Very Soon

2007-05-20T16:16:00Z

I’m very pleased to announce that Foundations of F# will finish its first printing run on Friday 25th May, two days after my birthday :). It should reach any pre-order customers between 5 to 10 days later, meaning if ordered it on Amazon or Borders (or any other online store), it should be with you before the end of May. A few weeks after that it should start appearing in books stores, at least bookstores that have very big tech departments.

I have to say I feel very proud to have got this far. There are over 230 code examples coving a large range of topics, so I think most F#ers will find something to interest them. Even advanced users will probably find the chapter on Language Oriented programming or advance interop useful.

So what are you waiting for? Order a copy today, if you haven’t already:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1590597575?tag=strangelights-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=1590597575&adid=0F4QKB6A95B2Z4NW1BFN

InfoQ on F#

2007-01-10T14:54:00Z

The tech news site InfoQ has a nice article on F# entitled "F#: Two Remarkable Years"

Foundations of F#

2006-10-08T14:23:00Z

I’ve been keeping pretty quite about this, because it is still a while to publication but I thought I should point out that: my book has been officially announced on my publisher’s, Apress, website. It is also available for pre-order on amazon.com, which I highly recommend that you do.

Is there anything more you would like to know about it?

Geoffrey Washburn - F# versus Scala

2006-09-06T17:10:00Z

Geoffrey Washburn has some interesting musings about the difference between F# and Scala, in his blog Existential Type which is about typography and logic and type theory.

SecertGeek.net - 3 minute guide to F#

2006-08-28T07:30:00Z

Leon Bambrick of the SecertGeek.net has a nice blog entry about F# entitled "F# -- the 3 minute guide!"

F# post by Miguel de Icaza

2006-08-17T14:20:00Z

I a very brief post on F# by the founder of the Mono project.

John Lam on F#

2006-08-08T08:11:00Z

John Lam has this nice post on F#. It is quite short, but has a great picture of Don Syme presenting F#.

Blogs on F#

2006-08-02T09:50:00Z

I noticed this nice introductory post on F# from Dave Cooper. Although he doesn't say much that hasn't been said elsewhere, lets hope he continues with his posting on F# and goes on to talk about his experinces with it.

I also noticed this nice post from the noted F# fan Ralf Herbrich, its all about using F# and the IEnumerator with SQL queries.

Bending the Cat: F# meets WPF 3D

2006-06-23T08:21:00Z

See it at my other blog.

C# style continuations in F# - yet another referral

2006-06-15T20:52:00Z

This time to my other blog.

FireBird and F#

2006-06-05T12:44:00Z

Mark Staples has this nice post on using F# with a Fire Bird database. While its not dissimilar to the OleDb example available on the F# wiki, it's nice as Mark's example links the database to a GUI and he provides a great explication of the code.

In the key of F#

2006-05-18T21:18:00Z

While I’m aware that my last posting could do with a fair bit of explanation for it to be really useful, I’m not in the mood to do that right now so thought I’d show something cute.

I was searching for something work related when I came across this sample in MSDN which I thought was quite cute so I decided to port it to F#. The sample plays “Mary had a Little Lamb” thought the console beeper.

Well here it is:

One thing that is slightly annoying about the sample is that the C# version is a good bit shorter. This is because C# has the concept of enums, that F# does not support. How the reason that F# does not support enums is because they are a bit dodgy, by this I mean C# will allow us to just cast any old int into an enum even if it is not a member of the enum. See what I mean:

    class Program
    {
        protected enum Duration
        {
            WHOLE = 1600,
            HALF = WHOLE / 2,
            QUARTER = HALF / 2,
            EIGHTH = QUARTER / 2,
            SIXTEENTH = EIGHTH / 2,
        }

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Duration d = (Duration)1232;
        }
    }

F# gives us its union type which is similar to enums but more powerful. However enums do one thing that union type can’t; you can directly associate an integer value with an enum, you can't do this with a union type. However after reflecting on this for a bit maybe this abstraction is a good thing. For example it would be trivial to create anther “convert_tone” function that mapped the tone type to another octave, you could then parameterise the “play” function to accept the a convert_tone function which then allows you to play your tune in any octave you whish. Well with in the limits of the consoles beep functionality!

A simple parser in F#

2006-05-11T19:31:00Z

I thought I should finally post something here!

But I've also been neglecting my other blog, so I'll just make this post a reference to the post I made there today:

http://strangelights.com/blog/archive/2006/05/11/1302.aspx