Programming F# is about practical programming in a beautiful language that puts the power and elegance of functional programming into the hands of professional developers. In combination with .NET, F# achieves unrivaled levels of programmer productivity and program clarity.

Programming F# is

• The authoritative guide to F# by the inventor of F#
• A comprehensive reference of F# concepts, syntax, and features
• A treasury of expert F# techniques for practical, real-world programming

F# isn't just another functional programming language. It's a general-purpose language ideal for real-world development. F# seamlessly integrates functional, imperative, and object-oriented programming styles so you can flexibly and elegantly solve any programming problem. Whatever your background, you’ll find that F# is easy to learn, fun to use, and extraordinarily powerful. F# will change the way you think about–and go about–programming.

Written by F#'s inventor and two major contributors to its development, Programming F# is the authoritative, comprehensive, and in-depth guide to the language and its use. Designed to help others become experts, the first part of the book quickly yet carefully describes the F# language. The second part then shows how to use F# elegantly for a wide variety of practical programming tasks.

The world's foremost experts in F# show you how to program in F# the way they do!

What you'll learn

• Explore F# and its features quickly and thoroughly in the introductory chapters
• Use F# with the newest .NET technologies such as WPF, LINQ, and ASP.NET AJAX
• Build reactive, asynchronous, and distributed applications with F#
• Interoperate with F# from other .NET languages, especially C#
• Test, profile, and performance tune F# applications
• Work with real-life examples and advanced programming features

Who is this book for?

Programming F# is for anyone interested in state-of-the art .NET programming. Professional programmers will find it engrossing. F# provides invaluable insight into the future of both C# and VB, which are now adopting some (but far from all) of the functional features of F#. Once programmers learn F#, few feel like returning to either C# or VB. The academic community will find F# the answer to a decades-long prayer: a language suitable for teaching computer science that also excites and empowers students because it can be used not just in the classroom, but also in the real world.