The "Why use F#?" Series

This series of posts will give you a guided tour through the main features of F# and then show you ways that F# can help you in your day-to-day development.

• Introduction to the 'Why use F#' series. An overview of the benefits of F#.

• F# syntax in 60 seconds. A very quick overview on how to read F# code.

• Comparing F# with C#: A simple sum. In which we attempt to sum the squares from 1 to N without using a loop.

• Comparing F# with C#: Sorting. In which we see that F# is more declarative than C#, and we are introduced to pattern matching..

• Comparing F# with C#: Downloading a web page. In which we see that F# excels at callbacks, and we are introduced to the 'use' keyword.

• Four Key Concepts. The concepts that differentiate F# from a standard imperative language.

• Conciseness. Why is conciseness important?.

• Type inference. How to avoid getting distracted by complex type syntax.

• Low overhead type definitions. No penalty for making new types.

• Using functions to extract boilerplate code. The functional approach to the DRY principle.

• Using functions as building blocks. Function composition and mini-languages make code more readable.

• Pattern matching for conciseness. Pattern matching can match and bind in a single step.

• Convenience. Features that reduce programming drudgery and boilerplate code.

• Out-of-the-box behavior for types. Immutability and built-in equality with no coding.

• Functions as interfaces. OO design patterns can be trivial when functions are used.

• Partial Application. How to fix some of a function's parameters.

• Active patterns. Dynamic patterns for powerful matching.

• Correctness. How to write 'compile time unit tests'.

• Immutability. Making your code predictable.

• Exhaustive pattern matching. A powerful technique to ensure correctness.

• Using the type system to ensure correct code. In F# the type system is your friend, not your enemy.

• Worked example: Designing for correctness. How to make illegal states unrepresentable.

• Concurrency. The next major revolution in how we write software?.

• Asynchronous programming. Encapsulating a background task with the Async class.

• Messages and Agents. Making it easier to think about concurrency.

• Functional Reactive Programming. Turning events into streams.

• Completeness. F# is part of the whole .NET ecosystem.

• Seamless interoperation with .NET libraries. Some convenient features for working with .NET libraries.

• Anything C# can do.... A whirlwind tour of object-oriented code in F#.

• Why use F#: Conclusion. .