Tech for devs, F#

Tech for Devs:Introduction to F#
Rob Rohr
12:30 - 1:30
Sep 11, 2010
Kalkin Hall
University of Vermont

Functional Programming
Emphasize application of functions over mutation of state (imperative programming style)

Um. Yeah. What?
Functional
fun inc x => x + 1
Imperative
x = x + 1

Important differences
Academics – especially mathematicians - love functional programming!
Type safety through inference
Lack of side effects

Heh! What is it good for?
Mathematical modeling
Programming languages
i.e., DSLs
List processing
Parallel programming
Concise code, fewer bugs
!(“Absolutely nothing?”)

Popular functional programming languages
Erlang
Lisp
Scheme
Haskell
OCaml/ML
F#

Why F#, then?
Superset of OCaml
Full access to .NET
Object Oriented
First class tools
Units!
Y!

DEMO
Working with F#
in Visual Studio

Important: Let
Let keyword
Not assignment
Binds value to symbol
Immutable

Important: |>
Pipeline operator ( |> )
Feed results of one function into input of next
Takes advantage of easy composition of functions
Removes many possible errors

Important: fun
Define a function in line
Anonymous function
Lambda expression!

F# Powerpack
http://fsharppowerpack.codeplex.com/
Matrix library
FsLexx & FsYacc
LINQ in F#
HTML Docs from F# code
HashMultiMap
SI Units of Measure

Parallelizable!
How do I parallelize my map/reduce/fold code?
Seq.map -> Seq.pmap
etc.

Availability
YOU MAY ALREADY HAVE IT Included in Visual Studio 2010
OR, FOR FREE,
Can install VS2010 Shell with August release of F# 2.0
Can install VS2008 Shell with August release of F# 2.0
Can install F# 2.0 for Mono/Mac/Linux/Windows
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/cambridge/projects/fsharp/release.aspx

Resources
F# Developer Centerhttp://fsharp.net
Parallel Sampleshttp://tomasp.net/blog/fsharp-parallel-samples.aspx
Chris Smith bloghttp://blogs.msdn.com/b/chrsmith/
Luca Bolognese bloghttp://lucabolognese.wordpress.com/

More Resources
F# at Microsoft Researchhttp://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/cambridge/projects/fsharp/
Don Syme’s bloghttp://blogs.msdn.com/b/dsyme/
Luke Hoban’s bloghttp://blogs.msdn.com/b/lukeh/

Contact me:
Rob RohrSchool of Business AdminUniversity of Vermont230 Kalkin HallBurlington, VT 05405-0157robert.rohr@uvm.edu@rob_rohr

Tech for devs, F#

by Robert Rohr on Sep 13, 2010

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Tech for devs, F# — Presentation Transcript