Assert Fail

F# 2 years later

F# 2 years later

08 Sep 2018

What’s the lure of F#?

The main lure of F# is that it’s a surprisingly competent ML style language that transcends some of the limitations of CIL.

From my point of view, the main distinguishing feature for F# is Statically Resolved Type Parameters. It’s a feature you don’t want to see in business code (same as reflection in C#), but something that enables libraries to take F# to the next level. Compare this to type classes in Haskell and what is called functors in OCaml.

What has delighted me?

  • The editor tooling for F# has grown more stable.
  • That F# has another perspective (compared to C#).
  • Type providers can simplify one-off “scripting”.

What has been annoying?

Personally most of the pain points have been in dealing with .net core.

  • Type providers have recently (2018/05/08) been fixed to work in .net core.
  • Using libraries intended to be consumed in C# that uses Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection and Microsoft.Extensions.Options requires ceremony to use.

These are minor things. For the most part I don’t need dependency injection heavy code in the F# I’ve been writing.

Tags

  • F#

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