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Why F#?

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Re: Why F#?

#41

Post by pdimitar »

weakfish wrote: post #38
pdimitar wrote: post #36

People will do anything except actually try Elixir. :D ...I mean: pipes, immutability, transparent mega-parallelism... helloooo? I tried F# some years ago (after I was fired from a shop that decided they will go all-in on Java and F# and dropping everything else overnight) and I was not impressed. I mean the language is really nice but the C# baggage and runtime was just a bit much. And I was not left convinced that…

The shop went all in on Java and F#? Why not C# and F#? That’s really odd, unless there’s context I’m missing.

I wish they told me. They cut ties with most of their previous devs overnight, as if we were some enemies. Weirdest firing in my life and career to this day.

Re: Why F#?

#42

Post by miloandmilk »

7thaccount wrote: post #30
netdevphoenix wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you are not supposed to do oop in f#

I'm aware, but you need to understand the .NET ecosystem to get anything practical done (at least when I was using it in 2017). All the books written on it (I own 3) are also the same way and assume you're a skilled C# dev.

100% this, I spent many months going through the most recent books on F# including one which the latest version was only released last year I think.

They all seem to try and shield you from the fact that you are much better placed if coming from C# (which everyone seems to refer to as .net these days) and have a solid understanding of the .net class library.

All the main web frameworks sit on top of asp.net and pretty much all official documentation for that is in c#

Such a shame because I learnt so much about types from trying to crack f# for real world application. fsharpforfunandprofit taught me heaps which I apply to other languages, but I don't want to become a c# developer which comes with all the years of changing best practices to be able to really be productive in f#.

Sorry if I am coming across as bitter but I just can't see learning f# in isolation from c# which is an absolute shame.

Re: Why F#?

#43

Post by bob1029 »

pjc50 wrote: post #22
eknkc wrote: post #3

As far as I can tell F# is one of those things where every single user is extremely happy. This happens rarely and I really am curious about the thing but never had time to get into it. I'm also pretty well versed in the .net ecosystem so it's probably gonna be easy. Any tips? What kind of workflows might benefit the most if I were to incorporate it (to learn..)?

The funny thing is that you can write very similar code in C#, so maybe you don't need to switch which language you're using as a CLR frontend. using System.Linq; using System; var names = new string[] {"Peter", "Julia", "Xi" }; names.Select(name => $"Hello, {name}").ToList().ForEach(greeting => Console.WriteLine($"{greeting}! Enjoy your C#")); LINQ is such a good library that I miss it in other languages. The Java s…

You can write a vast majority of your C# codebase in a functional style if you prefer to.

All the good stuff has been pirated from F# land by now: First-class functions, pattern matching, expression-bodied members, async functional composition, records, immutable collections, optional types, etc.

Re: Why F#?

#44

Post by gwbas1c »

this_user wrote: post #10

Because you love using Microsoft's shitty technologies, but also want to be completely unemployable?

I've spent my entire career, 22 years, primarily in C#.

I'm quite employable.

Re: Why F#?

#45

Post by owenm »

rockyj wrote: post #29

I did try F#, but I was new to .NET ecosystem. For 1 "hello world" I was quite surprised by how many project files and boilerplate was generated by .NET, which put me off. I am all for FP, immutable, and modern languages. But then where are the jobs and which companies care if you write good code? Now everyone wants languages which are easy to use with AI, while reducing workforce and "increased productivity". I have…

I hear you on the opportunity side and I can't see that changing. The good news is in recent releases there's a lot less boilerplate - "dotnet new console -lang F#" results in two files, a short fsproj file and a single line of Hello World.

Re: Why F#?

#46

Post by pimbrouwers »

Our shop converted 6 years ago, from C# to exclusively F#. I also author and maintain some packages (falco, donald, validus and others). The language is tough to learn if you're coming from a C-style language. But worth the effort and experience. It's extremely concise a true delight to build programs in that are fast, robust and durable.

There are a few drawbacks, depending on your perspective:

- compilation is slower than c# and hot reload isn't supported (it's in progress)

- there are very few opportunities to use it professionally

- hiring devs can be challenging

Re: Why F#?

#47

Post by GiorgioG »

As a 20+ year C# developer I’ve tried several times to learn/use F#. Despite being interested in FP, my brain is having trouble figuring out how to structure my code in F#. In C# I’d either build a service (or use the mediator pattern) for the domain and a repository for data access. With F# it’s functions all the way down and it feels unnatural (as silly as that may sound).

Re: Why F#?

#48

Post by weakfish »

pdimitar wrote: post #41
weakfish wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shop went all in on Java and F#? Why not C# and F#? That’s really odd, unless there’s context I’m missing.

I wish they told me. They cut ties with most of their previous devs overnight, as if we were some enemies. Weirdest firing in my life and career to this day.

That’s truly bizarre. Glad you’re out of that situation, doesn’t sound quite healthy from what you’re saying.

Re: Why F#?

#49

Post by bozhidar »

lihaoyi wrote: post #6

I learned F# in 2013 and had a lot of fun with it, some of that code remains on Github (e.g. a 2D platformer game for windows https://github.com/lihaoyi/FSharpMetro/tree/master/Applicati... ). My experience was that it was a surprisingly nice language with a surprisingly warty user experience: papercuts ranging from naming conventions and function call styles (`|> List.map` vs `.Select`), basic syntax (`foo.[0]` to l…

I think these days F# is probably a big more polished than what you remember, so perhaps it's worth giving it another shot.

Being a hosted language always requires certain compromises (something that was also apparent in Scala). I used to do Scala professionally in its early days, but for me it felt it added just as much complexity as it addressed. I focused on Clojure back then (on the FP side at least), and I do think that F# probably brings more to the table than Scala. (if one is not constrained to Java, that is)

The tooling story is not great, but I've almost never seen great tooling for a language that's not super popular. I'm guessing what you get today with Rider is more or less as good as what VS has to offer.

Re: Why F#?

#50

Post by ivm »

amelius wrote: post #11

I have a few questions. Can it do GUIs well? How about mobile? And how does it compare to e.g. Scala?

.NET for iOS and Android is very robust, I’ve been developing with it since 2018. Just avoid using MAUI for interfaces because it's still quite unfinished after the rewrite from Xamarin.Forms.
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