

Microsoft stealth launches 'historic' programming language: F# - mwexler
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/19/microsoft_f_sharp/

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Zak
_[F#] is the first time we've seen integration of a functional programming
language with an industrial-strength framework and toolset_

I think this requires very specific definitions of all his terms. It would be
easy to argue that Lisp machines met this definition, and that's just the
first example that came to mind.

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ashleytowers
"first time _we've_ seen"

Maybe they haven't been looking around - _cough_ Clojure _cough_

~~~
rbanffy
Parent mentioned Lisp Machines. They had a full IDE (well before the acronym)
based on a functional language.

They predate F# by a couple decades.

~~~
hga
Well, really multi-paradigm. Using it functionally was certainly an option,
but there was also progn, loop, etc. the imperative types.

~~~
mbrubeck
F#, like OCaml, is also multi-paradigm. Maybe not as much as Common Lisp, but
it does have language-level support for OOP and imperative programming. It's
not a purely functional language like Haskell.

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puredemo
Not sure how stealth this is, I've been hearing about F# for years. I'm glad
they are finally releasing it.

~~~
_delirium
Not only have you been hearing about it for years; it's also been released for
years: F# 1.0 came out in 2006! The only difference here is that with the
release of F# 2.0, it's now shipped by the Microsoft "product" teams instead
of "research" teams: it's included in Visual Studio 2010 available in boxes on
shelves, whereas previously it was available for download.

~~~
BudVVeezer
Which is actually a pretty big deal because it means the integration into VS
will be greatly improved. I've not tried the VS 2010 F#, but the plugin
version was pretty clunky within the IDE.

~~~
gaius
It's a big deal because now you can just go ahead and use it and no manager
can complain that it's not an official language. Hackers sometimes forget how
conservative the mainstream IT industry can be.

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borisk
Very stable and fast implementation. Just finished porting a Scala project and
the F# code runs around 50% faster on CLR 4.0 compared to Scala on JRockit
JVM.

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jacquesm
Daniel B Markham wrote his Quote Feed project in F#.

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iamelgringo
Anybody using F# for web apps? Thoughts? Comparisons?

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cygwin98
I've been thinking of this for a while. Although there is fswebtools that
shares the same spirit as GWT <http://tomasp.net/blog/fswebtools-intro.aspx>,
it's not as polished. IMHO, F# for the backend to provide web service, jQuery
for the frontend, and with JSON as the intermediate protocol may be a good
combo.

~~~
MichaelGG
Intellifactory makes a commercial product for exactly this:
<http://www.intellifactory.com/>

Write it all in F#, including using async workflows for seamless server-side
calls, and have it compile down to JS.

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MichaelGG
They did make a good point: F#'s marketing is severely limited. It seems that
Microsoft doesn't want to be in the position of saying "hey, here's a language
that does everything C# does, plus a ton of extra great things, and the only
drawback is the tool support".

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tjmc
Good to see an Aussie programming language out there. I hear the GC runs anti-
clockwise...

~~~
mahmud
Not only, but the JIT has a habit of chucking a sickie.

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ivenkys
This article is wrong or incorrect at so many levels , i wonder why did it
even get submitted and get as high as it is.

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jrockway
Microsoft bought a lot of goodwill from me when they productionized F#.
Finally, functional programming that anyone will be allowed to use!

Then I found out that they want you to pay them $80 to change the desktop
background in Windows 7 Starter.

So now I have forgotten about F#, and recommend Haskell instead. OCaml and
Scala are also fine. Fuck Microsoft, they'll never change.

