Finding Additional Examples

It’s a good idea to start simply with F#. Work through the default example, try some basic ideas of your own using the samples in this chapter as a template, and spend some time kicking the tires. Once you have a little better idea of what F# can do, you’ll definitely want to begin working with the Microsoft examples. You’ll find them in the \Program Files\FSharp-1.9.3.14\samples\fsharp folder of your hard drive. Once you understand these examples, check out Don Syme’s WebLog (http://blogs.msdn.com/dsyme/) and Somasegar's WebLog (http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2007/10/17/f-a-functional-programming-language.aspx) for additional information.

Bottom Line

One article can’t possibly tell you all of the ins and outs of an entire language. Hopefully, you have a little better understanding of what makes F# unique from reading this article. Adding F# to your toolbox could make the difference between writing applications that perform as they always have and those that perform extremely fast on the new multi-core processors arriving on the scene today. In addition, F# provides excellent pattern matching and list processing capabilities that you’d be hard pressed to match using C# or VB.NET; these are features we’ll explore in future articles here on DevSource.

BIO

John Mueller is a freelance author and technical editor. He has writing in his blood, having produced 79 books and over 300 articles to date. The topics range from networking to artificial intelligence and from database management to heads down programming. His most recent book is “Microsoft IIS 7 Implementation and Administration” (Sybex, ISBN: 978-0-470-17893-5). His technical editing skills have helped over 56 authors refine the content of their manuscripts. You can reach John on the Internet at JMueller@mwt.net and his Web site at: http://www.mwt.net/~jmueller/.