2 Hands on with F#

This chapter covers

Writing code the F# way
F# and .NET
Creating your first F# program
Getting started with Visual Studio (VS) Code
Configuring VS Code
Working with the REPL and scripts

F# may be different than other languages you’ve used, but it’s powerful and useful. In this chapter, we’ll get started coding and dive into what makes F# great.

2.1 Writing code the F# way

Let’s start by considering some of the principles behind F# with a quick compare-and-contrast with typical so-called curly-brace languages such as Java and C#. It’s worth doing before we start diving into the code so that you’re mentally prepared for some of the differences you might observe when doing F#. In some ways, much of what you read in this section is similar to what I said in chapter 1, except this is a more code-focused examination.

How much of a functional programming language is F#?

We’ll cover this in more detail later, but in a nutshell, F# encourages what I consider the two most important parts of functional programming (FP): expressions and immutability. It also has many other features that support flexible functions (such as composition and currying), and numerous recently added features have made their way into many other languages, such as lambdas and pattern matching. However, it doesn’t support or enforce more hardcore FP features such as pure functions, type classes, or higher kinded types.

2.1.1 What, not how

2.1.2 Composability

2 Hands on with F#

This chapter covers

2.1 Writing code the F# way

How much of a functional programming language is F#?

2.1.1 What, not how

2.1.2 Composability

2.1.3 Data and behavior

2.1.4 Working with a smarter compiler

2.2 F# and .NET

2.3 Creating your first F# program

2.3.1 Installing F#

2.3.2 The .NET CLI

2.3.3 Hello World in F#

2.4 Getting Started with Visual Studio Code

2.4.1 The Ionide extension

2 Hands on with F#

This chapter covers

2.1 Writing code the F# way

How much of a functional programming language is F#?

2.1.1 What, not how

2.1.2 Composability

2.1.3 Data and behavior

2.1.4 Working with a smarter compiler

2.2 F# and .NET

2.3 Creating your first F# program

2.3.1 Installing F#

2.3.2 The .NET CLI

2.3.3 Hello World in F#

2.4 Getting Started with Visual Studio Code

2.4.1 The Ionide extension

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