F

1
F

• Shiva Srivastava
• David He
• Peter Bingel

2
Overview

• F (pronounced "F sharp") is a functional and
  object oriented programming language for the
  Microsoft .NET platform
• A strength of F is its setting within .NET
• The core language is similar to that of the
  Objective Caml language both are members of the
  ML programming language family.
• Like the Scala programming language, it
  implements a functional programming language on
  top of a platform originally designed for
  object-oriented programming paradigm.
• The F environment includes the ability to run
  interactive sessions, allowing users to run
  pieces of code at will, collecting and analyzing
  the results without having to compile whole
  programs.

3
Problem Domain

• The F programming language has many applications
  ranging from scripting to cross-platform
  application development
• Ideal platform for scientific computing, filling
  the gap between low-level but high-performance
  numerical languages like Fortran and high-level
  but slow languages like Mathematica
• Can be spawned from interactive sessions, giving
  F the essential functionality of many expensive
  technical computing environments.

4
History

• F was initially developed by Microsoft Research,
  but now is being developed by Microsoft developer
  division after it was announced on October 17,
  2007 that F will be productized as a fully
  integrated language in Visual Studio1. The
  latest released version, 1.9.2.9, was released on
  July 31, 2007.
• F is derived from a series of different
  imperative and functional languages as are most
  modern languages (including Java and C).
• At the heart of F lies Objective Caml, or OCaml,
  and the .NET language C.
• So, let's leave it at this F is, in essence,
  another dialect, or "manifestation" as Microsoft
  calls it, of a functional ML-like language mixed
  with the power of C.

5
Language Concepts

• interactive scripting like Python
• the foundations for an interactive data
  visualization environment like MATLAB
• the strong type inference and safety of ML
• easy access to the entire range of powerful .NET
  libraries and database tools
• The only language that is scripted/ functional
  /imperative/ object-oriented

6
Defining Variables

• let x 3 (4 5)
• let res (if x 23 then "correct" else
  "incorrect")

7
Hello World Program

• let x "Hello World" System.Console.WriteLine(x
  )

8
Interesting features

• F includes support for the foundational features
  of functional programming including tuples,
  lists, options, function values, local function
  definitions, pattern matching and sequence
  expressions.
• The powerful type inference mechanisms of F
  allow code to be both succinct and yet fully
  type-checked.
• F also includes support for advanced functional
  programming constructs such as active patterns
  and computation expressions. Computation
  expressions can be used to express data queries
  and client/server modalities in AJAX-style web
  programming. They enable programmers to write
  succinct and robust reactive agents through the
  use of asynchronous workflows. Computation
  expressions are related to monads'' in Haskell.
  
• F embraces object-oriented programming and
  includes support for type-inferred, succinct
  descriptions of object types.
• F allows types and values in an F program to be
  accessed from other .NET languages in a
  predictable and friendly way.
• F includes support for a form of
  meta-programming, inspired by LINQ. This allows
  data queries to be expressed and type-checked in
  F code and then dynamically compiled and
  translated to target languages such as SQL using
  the LinqToSql framework.
• F fully supports .NET generics and the language
  was designed partly with this in mind.
• Through .NET, F supports advanced language and
  runtime features such as Unicode strings, dynamic
  linking, preemptive multithreading, and SMP
  support.

9
Comparison with OCML

• Some identifiers are now keywords.
• null, inline
• Some operator names are used for quotations.
• lt_at_ some string _at_gt
• There are some minor parsing differences.
• !x.y.z
• !(x.y.z)
• (!x).y.z.
• Two top-level definitions with the same name are
  not allowed within a module or a module type.
• let x 1
• let x 3

10
F Vs OCml
11
Similarities To Other Languages

• interactive scripting like Python,
• the foundations for an interactive data
  visualization environment like MATLAB,
• the strong type inference and safety of ML,
• a performance profile like that of C,
• a foundational simplicity with similar roots to
  Scheme,

12
Sources

• Microsoft
• http//research.microsoft.com/fsharp/
• Wikipedia
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F