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Why F#?

(batsov.com)
438 points bozhidar | 3 comments | 01 Apr 25 12:34 UTC | HN request time: 2.36s | source
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eknkc ◴[01 Apr 25 12:45 UTC] No.43546122[source]▶
As far as I can tell F# is one of those things where every single user is extremely happy. This happens rarely and I really am curious about the thing but never had time to get into it. I'm also pretty well versed in the .net ecosystem so it's probably gonna be easy.

Any tips? What kind of workflows might benefit the most if I were to incorporate it (to learn..)?

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pjc50 ◴[01 Apr 25 13:05 UTC] No.43546333[source]▶
The funny thing is that you can write very similar code in C#, so maybe you don't need to switch which language you're using as a CLR frontend.

    using System.Linq;
    using System;

    var names = new string[] {"Peter", "Julia", "Xi" };
    names.Select(name => $"Hello, {name}").ToList().ForEach(greeting =>   Console.WriteLine($"{greeting}! Enjoy your C#"));
LINQ is such a good library that I miss it in other languages. The Java stream equivalent just doesn't feel as fluent.
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bob1029 ◴[01 Apr 25 13:23 UTC] No.43546511[source]▶
You can write a vast majority of your C# codebase in a functional style if you prefer to.

All the good stuff has been pirated from F# land by now: First-class functions, pattern matching, expression-bodied members, async functional composition, records, immutable collections, optional types, etc.

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UK-Al05 ◴[01 Apr 25 14:08 UTC] No.43546966[source]▶
A language is just as much about what it can't do, then what it can do.
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1. bob1029 ◴[01 Apr 25 16:55 UTC] No.43548997[source]▶
Can you elaborate on what you mean by this?

I assume you are implying that too many choices could confuse a junior developer, which I agree with. However, I don't think this is a concern in the bigger picture when talking about the space of all languages.

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2. gonesurfing ◴[01 Apr 25 20:00 UTC] No.43550755[source]▶
My 2p's worth is that the whole of F# is more than the some of its parts. When you say in your previous comment "All the good stuff has been pirated from F#" it misses the point of what it's actually like to use F#. The problem is, it's almost impossible to communicate what it's like. You have to try it and you have to keep going until you get over the initial "WTF!?" hump. There will be a WTF hump.

For example, C# may have cribbed the language features, but F# is expression based and immutable by default. Try using the same features in this context and the whole game changes.

3. UK-Al05 ◴[02 Apr 25 10:06 UTC] No.43555189[source]▶
A language by making certain things harder makes the resulting code be built in a certain way.

F# makes mutable code harder to do, so you tend to write immutable code by default.