F# for Fun and Profit
Part of the "Why use F#?" series (link)
Convenience
Features that reduce programming drudgery and boilerplate code
13 Apr 2012 This post is over 3 years old
In the next set of posts, we will explore a few more features of F# that I have grouped under the theme of “convenience”. These features do not necessarily result in more concise code, but they do remove much of the drudgery and boilerplate code that would be needed in C#.
- Useful “out-of-the-box” behavior for types. Most types that you create will immediately have some useful behavior, such as immutability and built-in equality – functionality that has to be explicitly coded for in C#.
- All functions are “interfaces”, meaning that many of the roles that interfaces play in object-oriented design are implicit in the way that functions work. And similarly, many object-oriented design patterns are unnecessary or trivial within a functional paradigm.
- Partial application. Complicated functions with many parameters can have some of the parameters fixed or “baked in” and yet leave other parameters open.
- Active patterns. Active patterns are a special kind of pattern where the pattern can be matched or detected dynamically, rather than statically. They are great for simplifying frequently used parsing and grouping behaviors.
The "Why use F#?" series
-
Introduction to the 'Why use F#' series
An overview of the benefits of F# -
F# syntax in 60 seconds
A very quick overview on how to read F# code -
Comparing F# with C#: A simple sum
In which we attempt to sum the squares from 1 to N without using a loop -
Comparing F# with C#: Sorting
In which we see that F# is more declarative than C#, and we are introduced to pattern matching. -
Comparing F# with C#: Downloading a web page
In which we see that F# excels at callbacks, and we are introduced to the 'use' keyword -
Four Key Concepts
The concepts that differentiate F# from a standard imperative language -
Conciseness
Why is conciseness important? -
Type inference
How to avoid getting distracted by complex type syntax -
Low overhead type definitions
No penalty for making new types -
Using functions to extract boilerplate code
The functional approach to the DRY principle -
Using functions as building blocks
Function composition and mini-languages make code more readable -
Pattern matching for conciseness
Pattern matching can match and bind in a single step -
Convenience
Features that reduce programming drudgery and boilerplate code -
Out-of-the-box behavior for types
Immutability and built-in equality with no coding -
Functions as interfaces
OO design patterns can be trivial when functions are used -
Partial Application
How to fix some of a function's parameters -
Active patterns
Dynamic patterns for powerful matching -
Correctness
How to write 'compile time unit tests' -
Immutability
Making your code predictable -
Exhaustive pattern matching
A powerful technique to ensure correctness -
Using the type system to ensure correct code
In F# the type system is your friend, not your enemy -
Worked example: Designing for correctness
How to make illegal states unrepresentable -
Concurrency
The next major revolution in how we write software? -
Asynchronous programming
Encapsulating a background task with the Async class -
Messages and Agents
Making it easier to think about concurrency -
Functional Reactive Programming
Turning events into streams -
Completeness
F# is part of the whole .NET ecosystem -
Seamless interoperation with .NET libraries
Some convenient features for working with .NET libraries -
Anything C# can do...
A whirlwind tour of object-oriented code in F# -
Why use F#: Conclusion
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