Enabling Contributions to the Visual F# IDE Tools

#1

Post by pcj » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 6:03 PM UTC

Enabling Contributions to the Visual F# IDE Tools
blogs.msdn.com

Re: Enabling Contributions to the Visual F# IDE Tools

#2

Post by kvb » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 6:38 PM UTC

It's an exciting time to be an F# programmer. The community really seems to be stepping up and getting ready to make important contributions.

Re: Enabling Contributions to the Visual F# IDE Tools

#3

Post by xvilka » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 8:53 PM UTC

Just Microsoft's rebrand and restricted version of OCaml. And, imho, it is much better to use original language (since it have much more features), especially with Core library.

Re: Enabling Contributions to the Visual F# IDE Tools

#4

Post by brandonbloom » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 8:57 PM UTC

xvilka wrote: post #3

Just Microsoft's rebrand and restricted version of OCaml. And, imho, it is much better to use original language (since it have much more features), especially with Core library.

I mean, sure, you can use OCaml... unless you want/have to interop with .NET, then it doesn't matter how much you like OCaml, it's not going to solve your problem.

Re: Enabling Contributions to the Visual F# IDE Tools

#5

Post by kvb » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 9:00 PM UTC

xvilka wrote: post #3

Just Microsoft's rebrand and restricted version of OCaml. And, imho, it is much better to use original language (since it have much more features), especially with Core library.

While F# was definitely strongly influenced by OCaml, their features have diverged significantly. For example, F# has type providers, active patterns, and units of measure (though you're also right that OCaml has lots of features that F# doesn't, like first class modules).

Note also that this blog post is about accepting contributions to the Visual Studio IDE components for F#, not for the language itself (which has been open source for many years, and has already been accepting contributions from the community for a little while).

Re: Enabling Contributions to the Visual F# IDE Tools

#6

Post by zem » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 10:15 PM UTC

xvilka wrote: post #3

Just Microsoft's rebrand and restricted version of OCaml. And, imho, it is much better to use original language (since it have much more features), especially with Core library.

i just want to note that as far as i've seen, the ocaml community has little to no animosity towards f#. there are lots of ML dialects out there and the prevailing mood seems to be one of cooperation rather than competition - it's nice to see people explore the design space.

Re: Enabling Contributions to the Visual F# IDE Tools

#7

Post by jackfoxy » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 11:34 PM UTC

For those interested in contributing to the F# language itself and the compiler, the F# Open Engineering Group has an article on that topic http://fsharp.github.io/2014/06/18/fsharp-contributions.html

Re: Enabling Contributions to the Visual F# IDE Tools

#8

Post by CmonDev » Tue, Jul 01, 2014, 1:10 PM UTC

kvb wrote: post #5

xvilka wrote: post #3

Just Microsoft's rebrand and restricted version of OCaml. And, imho, it is much better to use original language (since it have much more features), especially with Core library.

While F# was definitely strongly influenced by OCaml, their features have diverged significantly. For example, F# has type providers, active patterns, and units of measure (though you're also right that OCaml has lots of features that F# doesn't, like first class modules). Note also that this blog post is about accepting contributions to the Visual Studio IDE components for F#, not for the language itself (which has…

Aren't units of measure just a compilation trick, leveraging the existing capabilities of OCAML (algebraic data types) and .NET (attributes)?

I just learned that they could be implemented in C# relatively easily (although maybe not to same extent): http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/413750/Units-of-Measure-...

Re: Enabling Contributions to the Visual F# IDE Tools

#9

Post by CmonDev » Tue, Jul 01, 2014, 1:13 PM UTC

xvilka wrote: post #3

Just Microsoft's rebrand and restricted version of OCaml. And, imho, it is much better to use original language (since it have much more features), especially with Core library.

Please tell us how much time would it take you to build an OCAML app that would target: web, Android, iOS, Mac, Linux, Windows (desktop, store, phone), PS4 etc.?

Re: Enabling Contributions to the Visual F# IDE Tools

#10

Post by kvb » Tue, Jul 01, 2014, 2:15 PM UTC

CmonDev wrote: post #8

kvb wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While F# was definitely strongly influenced by OCaml, their features have diverged significantly. For example, F# has type providers, active patterns, and units of measure (though you're also right that OCaml has lots of features that F# doesn't, like first class modules). Note also that this blog post is about accepting contributions to the Visual Studio IDE components for F#, not for the language itself (which has…

Aren't units of measure just a compilation trick, leveraging the existing capabilities of OCAML (algebraic data types) and .NET (attributes)? I just learned that they could be implemented in C# relatively easily (although maybe not to same extent): http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/413750/Units-of-Measure-...

No, not at all. It is true that units are erased at runtime, but the compile time behavior is quite sophisticated, going well beyond anything that's possible in C# or OCaml. (Your link is quite interesting, but I think that using a custom build step is "cheating" to some degree in that you can add arbitrary features by adding language-external post build processing).

By being built into the language, units of measure in F# work naturally with type inference (and definitions can be measure-generic), so:

    let weirdOperation (x:float) (y:float) = x * x + y * y * y

will be inferred to have type

    x:float -> y:float -> float