InfoWorld

Microsoft touts functional programming with F#

<div class="rxbodyfield"><p class="ArticleBody" page="1">Microsoft is boosting integration of functional programming with its Visual Studio 2008 software development platform.</p><p align="right"><a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" target="_blank" /><img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" width="336" height="280" border="0" alt="" align="right"/></a></p><p class="ArticleBody" page="1">Improved integration is featured in a September Community Technology Preview of the F# language for the .Net platform. <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/10/22/Microsoft-moves-on-F-sharp-functional-language_1.html" class="regularArticleU">F#</a> has been positioned as a language based on concepts of functional programming, in which computation is treated as the evaluation of mathematical functions. It also supports object-oriented programming.</p><p class="ArticleBody" page="1">"This release marks an important step along the path we laid out in October to integrate the F# language into Visual Studio and to continue innovating and evolving F#," said S. "Soma" Somasegar, senior vice president of the Microsoft Developer Division, in a <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/" target="_blank" class="regularArticleU">blog entry</a> this week.</p><p class="ArticleBody" page="1">?Functional programming has been viewed as valuable in domains such as the financial and scientific realms as well as technical computing. Microsoft has described F# as combining type safety, performance and scripting with advantages of running on a modern runtime, with intentions to make the language a "first-class citizen" on .Net.</p><p class="ArticleBody" page="1">Accessible <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=61ad6924-93ad-48dc-8c67-60f7e7803d3c&displaylang=en" target="_blank" class="regularArticleU">here</a>, the CTP features improvements to the F# language and libraries to make them simpler and more regular, Somasegar said. "Broadly improved" <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/11/19/Microsoft-ships-Visual-Studio-2008_1.html" class="regularArticleU">Visual Studio 2008</a> integration allows F# users to scale from scripting and explorative development to large-scale component and application design from within Visual Studio.</p><p class="ArticleBody" page="1">Also, Microsoft with the CTP is introducing a language feature called "Units of Measure," which extends F# inference and strong typing to floating point data.</p><p class="ArticleBody" page="1">Another Microsoft blogger, <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/dsyme/" target="_blank" class="regularArticleU">Don Syme,</a> who has spearheaded development of F# in the Microsoft Research group, stressed added support for scripting in the language, compiler, and Visual Studio via the CTP. An improved project system, meanwhile, enables large-scale, tool-based software development with F#.</p><p class="ArticleBody" page="1">"One of the key things about F# is that it spans the spectrum from interactive, explorative scripting to component and large-scale software development," Syme said.</p><p class="ArticleBody" page="1">The new F# Language Services provides more reliable intellisense typing tips.</p><p class="ArticleBody" page="1">"Programming with F# can be enormously?fun and rewarding, as well as just plain productive. This is now more true than ever, and we hope you enjoy using F# as much as we do," Syme said.</p><p class="ArticleBody" page="1">Additionally, Microsoft has launched an F# <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/fsharp/default.aspx" class="regularArticleU">Development Center</a> on MSDN, providing resources for developers and links to F# user communities. F# has been a joint project of Microsoft's Developer Division and Microsoft Research.</p></div>