LOGIN | REGISTER NOW | SUBSCRIBE
 

F# language moves from lab into production


By David Worthington
Email    print   
January 19, 2010 —  (Page 1 of 3)
The F# programming language will become a major .NET language with its formal April debut in Visual Studio 2010, as it transitions from a Microsoft research project. F# has become a surprise hit among .NET developers, and it is being treated as a "first-class language" by Microsoft, serving as a test bed for ideas, said Larry O'Brien, an independent software architect and technology analyst who also writes the “Windows & .NET Watch” column for SD Times.

Pronounced as "F-sharp," F# is a hybrid functional and object-oriented programming language that was created by researchers at Microsoft's Cambridge, U.K. lab to demonstrate interoperability between different programming paradigms.

Some of its features include dynamic linking, preemptive multithreading and SMP machine support, and Unicode strings. It also is highly immutable—meaning that objects' state cannot be modified once created—and has an implicit type system.

Because F# has an implicit type system, source code is smaller and the syntax is simpler, said Rick Minerich, a Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) and F# user group leader; he is also a software engineer at component maker Atalasoft.

"It is a stronger typed language than C#," he explained. "C# makes no guarantees about things you are passing around. In F#, you deal with unexpected results sooner and more clearly."

Microsoft has been using F# to build libraries for its software, including Microsoft Server Foundation, a set of algorithms that were tested in F# and then moved to C#, said Edgar Sánchez, a Microsoft regional director, an individual recognized by Microsoft's Developer Platform evangelism group for technical expertise.

Libraries written in F# can extend languages like C# with its own capabilities, and a developer wouldn't necessarily need to learn a new language or even know that they are using F#,  explained Amanda Laucher, a developer with ThoughtWorks, a consulting and development company. "It doesn't add complexity to the system, it just adds another DLL."

However, O'Brien was sour on the prospect that mainstream developers would write libraries in one language and then use them in another. "It seems to me that people are either writing entire applications in F#, or [they] are very advanced ISVs who might do a component in F# that they sell or license for general use," he said.


Related Search Term(s): F#, Visual Studio

Pages 1 2 3 


Share this link: http://sdt.bz/34067
 
Most Read Latest News Blog Resources
Branching and merging: the heart of version control
Providers hold their own views of the landscape, but the Git SCM system is drawing looks from them all
Not so fast when it comes to testing in the cloud
Developers face outsourcing, virtual lab management and mobile devices as obstacles
Microsoft pivots toward business intelligence
The goal is to make business intelligence accessible "to the masses"
From the Editors: Node.js is unruly, but that’s where the fun is
The time to get involved with Node.js is now; Hadoop is about to break its own barriers
Digg!  Digg
Reddit  Reddit
Slashdot  Slashdot
Share on facebook  Facebook
Share on Twitter  Twitter


Add comment


Name*
Email*  
Country     


  • Comment
Loading




close
NEXT ARTICLE
New analytics for Visual Studio TFS
PreEmptive Solutions allows for collecting and sifting data from applications, and to create tasks from that data Read More...
 
 
 
 
News on Monday
more>>
SharePoint Tech Report
more>>


   

 
 

Download Current Issue
FEBRUARY 2012 PDF ISSUE

Need Back Issues?
DOWNLOAD HERE

Want to subscribe?


 
blogs tab
GitHire: Use Headhunters to Find Your Perfect Programmer
Are you a hiring manager tired of scouring the job boards? Check out this new service that will find 5 people interested in your jobs.
02/03/2012 12:17 PM EST

Facebook claims hacker cred
Facebook's SEC S-1 filing form includes a short essay on the Hacker Way by Mark Zuckerberg himself.
02/02/2012 08:26 AM EST

Ryan Dahl steps down
Ryan Dahl, creator of Node.js, steps back from his position as gatekeeper for the project.
02/01/2012 04:58 PM EST

Bloomberg opens its API
Bloomberg's APIs could lead to a future standard for accessing market data.
02/01/2012 04:41 PM EST

The case for piracy
In the aftermath of SOPA and PIPA, some copyright holders have begun to embrace piracy as inevitable...and even beneficial.
01/30/2012 02:39 PM EST

Tablet sales boom, but applications lag
The installed base of tablet computers and e-book readers is growing rapidly, but no killer app has yet emerged -- hint, hint.
01/28/2012 05:48 PM EST

 
Events calendar tab
Cloud Connect
2/13/2012 to 2/16/2012
Santa Clara
TechWeb

SPTechCon: The SharePoint Technology Conf.
2/26/2012 to 2/29/2012
San Francisco
BZ Media

RSA Conf.
2/27/2012 to 3/2/2012
San Francisco
RSA

IBM Pulse Conf.
3/4/2012 to 3/7/2012
Las Vegas
IBM Tivoli

Game Developer Conf.
3/5/2012 to 3/9/2012
San Francisco
TechWeb