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F# Shiva Srivastava David He Peter Bingel Overview • F# (pronounced "F sharp") is a functional and object oriented programming language for the Microsoft .NET platform • A strength of F# is its setting within .NET • The core language is similar to that of the Objective Caml language: both are members of the ML programming language family. • Like the Scala programming language, it implements a functional programming language on top of a platform originally designed for object-oriented programming paradigm. • The F# environment includes the ability to run interactive sessions, allowing users to run pieces of code at will, collecting and analyzing the results without having to compile whole programs. Problem Domain • The F# programming language has many applications ranging from scripting to cross-platform application development • Ideal platform for scientific computing, filling the gap between lowlevel but high-performance numerical languages like Fortran and high-level but slow languages like Mathematica • Can be spawned from interactive sessions, giving F# the essential functionality of many expensive technical computing environments. History • F# was initially developed by Microsoft Research, but now is being developed by Microsoft developer division after it was announced on October 17, 2007 that F# will be productized as a fully integrated language in Visual Studio[1]. The latest released version, 1.9.2.9, was released on July 31, 2007. • F# is derived from a series of different imperative and functional languages as are most modern languages (including Java and C). • At the heart of F# lies Objective Caml, or OCaml, and the .NET language C#. • So, let's leave it at this: F# is, in essence, another dialect, or "manifestation" as Microsoft calls it, of a functional ML-like language mixed with the power of C#. Language Concepts • interactive scripting like Python • the foundations for an interactive data visualization environment like MATLAB • the strong type inference and safety of ML • easy access to the entire range of powerful .NET libraries and database tools • The only language that is scripted/ functional /imperative/ objectoriented Defining Variables let x = 3 + (4 * 5) let res = (if x = 23 then "correct" else "incorrect") Hello World Program • let x = "Hello World";; System.Console.WriteLine(x);; Interesting features • • • • • • • • F# includes support for the foundational features of functional programming including tuples, lists, options, function values, local function definitions, pattern matching and sequence expressions. The powerful type inference mechanisms of F# allow code to be both succinct and yet fully typechecked. F# also includes support for advanced functional programming constructs such as active patterns and computation expressions. Computation expressions can be used to express data queries and client/server modalities in AJAX-style web programming. They enable programmers to write succinct and robust reactive agents through the use of asynchronous workflows. Computation expressions are related to ``monads'' in Haskell. F# embraces object-oriented programming and includes support for type-inferred, succinct descriptions of object types. F# allows types and values in an F# program to be accessed from other .NET languages in a predictable and friendly way. F# includes support for a form of meta-programming, inspired by LINQ. This allows data queries to be expressed and type-checked in F# code and then dynamically compiled and translated to target languages such as SQL using the LinqToSql framework. F# fully supports .NET generics and the language was designed partly with this in mind. Through .NET, F# supports advanced language and runtime features such as Unicode strings, dynamic linking, preemptive multithreading, and SMP support. Comparison with OCML • Some identifiers are now keywords. – • Some operator names are used for quotations. – • <@ some string @> There are some minor parsing differences. – – – • null, inline !x.y.z !(x.y.z) (!x).y.z. Two top-level definitions with the same name are not allowed within a module or a module type. – – let x = 1 let x = 3 F# Vs OCml Similarities To Other Languages • interactive scripting like Python, • the foundations for an interactive data visualization environment like MATLAB, • the strong type inference and safety of ML, • a performance profile like that of C#, • a foundational simplicity with similar roots to Scheme, Sources • • • • Microsoft http://research.microsoft.com/fsharp/ Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F#