The Future of F#: Type Providers
Joe Pamer presents what Type Providers coming in F# 3.0 are: a mechanism for accessing a multitude of external data source.
Joe Pamer presents what Type Providers coming in F# 3.0 are: a mechanism for accessing a multitude of external data source.
F# is emerging as a great choice for Numerical computing. Reasons? Functional design, libraries such as PowerPack, MathProvider and Math.NET and the interoperability of the .NET Framework.
Microsoft recently announced a developer preview release of F# 3.0 – new features include LINQ-support through Query expressions and a Type Provider System along with a set of built-in providers that allow succinct programming against a variety of data sources.
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Functional programming languages can lead to novel ways of thinking about application development. There is just something about using a different paradigm that puts engineering problems into a new context. In such a spirit, Adam Granicz shows how F# and WebSharper can be used to tame mobile development.

Robert Pickering continues the conversation in this third article on F# and this time focuses on Asynchronous Workflows and the resulting peformance gains obtained when used. While this article focuses on F#, the learnings are applicable across .NET languages.
Richard Minerich shows how to use F# in Mono with MonoDevelop, detailing some of the features that make it attractive to programmers.
Don Syme discusses the history of F#, how it came about, the current status of the language, especially its simple model supporting parallel and asynchronous programming, and a preview of F# 3.0.
In this interview from the Erlang Factory event in London, three creators of modern functional languages -- Martin Odersky, creator of Scala; Joe Armstrong, a creator of Erlang; and Don Syme, creator of F# -- discuss the similarities and differences of their creations. They also discuss their languages’ common thread -- that they integrate object-oriented features in functional languages.

Functional programming experts Simon Thompson and John Hughes discuss functional programming in today’s computing environments, particularly through the use of the Erlang and Haskell languages. In addition to debating the intricacies of both languages and their similarities and differences, Thompson and Hughes also discuss the growing popularity and maturity if functional programming.