Microsoft sharpens Visual Studio with functions

How do you get the advantages of scripting languages, strong typing, a simple efficient testing regime and a object-oriented development environment? According to Microsoft you plug into one of its esoteric research projects - coming to a Visual Studio near you some time soon. The project is a functional programming language …

[Kim Rasmussen]

F#?

Wasn't C#'s codename "Cool" or some such "cute" name?

I wonder what they're calling F#...

[Iain Downs]

It's there today

I think F# is already quite mature. You can find out more and download the latest version at http://research.microsoft.com/fsharp/fsharp.aspx

I've never tried to use this, so I can't comment on if it intregrates with VS2005 or what. Enjoy!

[Ben DAMET]

F# is great

I am a strong supporter of functional languages, be it OCaml, Haskell or F#. I reckon I do not understand why they are not more widely used.

I had the chance to develop a bit in F# a bit more than a year ago. It is a wonderful language. It is much nicer than traditional OCaml as it has operator overloading, and has the ability to import classes from the .NET framework really efficiently. I've had some problems with modularity, which I had not in OCaml. Did not investigate too much about those.

For a scripting language it is nearly overkill, but it is certainly very capable. The interactive frontend is very capable. It is also a full fledged application development language. Support for quotations was the reason for me to use it. I do not know how the quotation module evolved in the past 6 months but it was very good already back then.

I strongly recommend using it. And it is not because I had the chance to meet Don Syme, I promise.

links :

http://research.microsoft.com/fsharp/about.aspx