F Sharp (programming language): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 22:51, 1 November 2005

Revision as of 00:32, 3 November 2005

Line 5:

'''F#''' (pronounced F sharp) is a mixed [[functional programming|functional]] and [[Imperative programming|imperative]] [[programming language]] for the [[Microsoft .NET]] platform. F# was developed by [http://blogs.msdn.com/dsyme/default.aspx Don Syme] at [[Microsoft Research]], and has a core language that is similar to that of the [[Ocaml|Caml]] language (itself a member of the [[ML programming language]] family).

A strength of F# is its setting within .NET. A key design aim is seamless .NET interoperability, both via direct use of .NET APIs from F# and authorship of natural .NET components in F#. Consequently, the main F# libraries are the .NET libraries themselves (e.g. DirectX, Windows Forms, and ASP.NET, as well as alternatives like GTKGtk#). A Visual Studio plugin provides a graphical development environment, including features such as background type-checking with feedback under the mouse, which is extremely helpful for those unfamiliar with type inference.

F# also provides a standard library of its own, designed to be largely compatible with the OCaml standard library. Since the two languages also share a common language subset, it can thus be quite practical to compile a single codebase with both. This enables core Caml code to be ported to the .NET world, and core F# code to run with OCaml. Maintaining this basic compatibility is one of the primary goals of the project.