Mastering F#

Alfonso Garcia-Caro Nunez, Suhaib Fahad

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781784396848
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Programming in C#
• Index: Computer Science

A comprehensive and in-depth guide to writing functional programs using F#About This Book• Learn how to manage, run, and automate your servers using Puppet• Explore how to use F# to develop large-scale applications quickly and simply, and become more productive in today's age of cloud computing and multi-core programming• This easy-to-follow guide is packed with real-world examples that will jump-start you with F# development on the.NET platformWho This Book Is ForIf you are a C# developer with a basic knowledge of F# and want to explore the functional programming paradigm further to master your F# skills, then this book is for you.What You Will Learn• Understand the basics of F# and organize F# source code with Visual Studio• Work with F# data structures and create functional data structures in F# interoperate with C#• Build and use asynchronous programming patterns with F#• Create and use type providers that help perform data analysis from within Visual Studio• Develop applications with pure F# code in WPF or ASP.NET MVC• Find out how to perform distributed programming with ServiceBus or ZeroMQ• Visualize data with charts, and work with Excel and R language Type providersIn DetailF# is a multi-paradigm programming language that encompasses object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming language properties. Now adopted in a wide range of application areas and is supported both by industry-leading companies who provide professional tools and by an active open community, F# is rapidly gaining popularity as it emerges in digital music advertising, creating music-focused ads for Spotify, Pandora, Shazam, and anywhere on the web. This book will guide you through the basics and will then help you master F#. The book starts by explaining how to use F# with Visual Studio, file ordering, and the differences between F# and C# in terms of usage. It moves on to explain the functional core of F# such as data types, type declarations, immutability, strong type interference, pattern matching, records, F# data structures, sequence expressions, and lazy evaluation. Next, the book takes you through imperative and asynchronous programming, F# type providers, applications, and testing in F#. Finally, we look into using F# with distributed programming and using F# as a suitable language for data science. In short, this book will help you learn F# for real-world applications and increase your productivity with functional programming.Style and approachThis easy-to-follow guide with syntaxes will help you master the concepts of F#. Packed with in-depth examples of real-world uses, this book covers each topic in detail with a reference to C#, so you will understand the difference between the languages.

Mastering F#

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Mastering F#

Copyright © 2016 Packt Publishing

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Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

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First published: November 2016

Production reference: 1251116

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

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B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78439-343-4

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Credits

Authors Alfonso García-Caro Núñez Suhaib Fahad	Copy Editor Zainab Bootwala
Reviewer Basel Wael Abu-Jamous	Project Coordinator Izzat Contractor
Commissioning Editor Ashwin Nair	Proofreader Safis Editing
Acquisition Editor Ajith Menon	Indexer Tejal Daruwale Soni
Content Development Editor Zeeyan Pinheiro	Graphics Jason Monteiro
Technical Editor Kunal Chaudhari	Production Coordinator Shraddha Falebhai

About the Authors

Alfonso García-Caro Núñez is a linguist who, in recent years, changed the study of natural languages by the practice of their programming counterparts. He currently focuses on JavaScript and .NET development and has worked on developing mobile, web, and desktop applications for several industries, such as video games, education, green energy, or digital performances. He is also an international speaker who has presented at several conferences around the globe. His admiration for both the thriving JavaScript ecosystem and functional programming with F# made him look for a way to bring together both worlds, leading to the creation of Fable, an F# to JavaScript compiler that is attracting lot of attention from the community, and integrates the power and elegance of F# with the hundreds of JavaScript tools and libraries available.

I would like to say a big thank you to all the members of the incredibly supportive and welcoming F# community. Since my first timid steps into functional programming, I have been always encouraged to give my opinion and contribute to the development of the ecosystem and the language itself. Features and tools are important, but it is openness and collaboration that really makes you proud to belong to a community. Neither this book nor anything else in my life would have been possible without the care and love of my family. I dedicate this as well as all my work to the women of my life: my mother, wife, and daughter.

Suhaib Fahad is an entrepreneur and is running a startup; he is also an expert F# programmer and enthusiast, using F# in various domains within the products that he is building. He is extremely passionate about developing in functional languages and loves to engage with developers of different communities. He has also been researching and working with cloud scale applications since 2012. Fahad lives in Bangalore, the IT hub of India, with his wife and baby boy.

About the Reviewer

Dr Basel Abu-Jamous is a post-doctorate researcher in the area of bioinformatics at the University of Oxford. He is interested in the development of new computational algorithms that address bioinformatic questions with a special focus on tunable consensus clustering methods. He is also interested in the application of such methods in biology and medicine. For instance, he currently works in Dr. Steven Kelly’s laboratory within the C4 Rice Project that aims to improve photosynthetic efficiency in rice and thus to enhance crop yields. As such, the C4 Rice Project is one of the scientific Grand Challenges of the 21st century, involving the coordinated efforts of researchers from 12 institutions in eight countries.

Previously, while being in the group of Professor Asoke Nandi at Brunel University London, he worked closely with Professor David Roberts, the Professor of Hematology at John Radcliffe Hospital and the University of Oxford, to understand the genetic programs responsible for erythropoiesis, that is, the production of red blood cells in human bodies. He was also in collaboration with Professor Adrian Harris and Professor Francesca Buffa, experts in breast cancer at Churchill Hospital and the University of Oxford, to analyze genetic regulatory pathways in breast cancer tumors under hypoxia, that is, low levels of oxygen. Additionally, he was also involved in the analysis of data from other areas including baker’s yeast, malaria, and E. coli bacteria.

Dr Abu-Jamous received his Ph.D. from Brunel University London in July 2015 and was awarded the Dean’s Prize for Innovation and Impact in Doctoral Research in the area of electronic and computer engineering in December of the same year. In January 2015, he was appointed by Professor Nandi as a research assistant at Brunel University London, and in July 2016 he moved to the University of Oxford.

He has published eight journal papers, fourteen peer-reviewed full-length papers in international conferences, and a research monograph book (Abu-Jamous, Fa, and Nandi, Integrative cluster analysis in bioinformatics, John Wiley & Sons, 2015).

Dr Abu-Jamous would like to thank the C4 Rice Project for funding his current research, Brunel University London and the UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) for funding his Ph.D. degree and his previous post-doctorate research (NIHR grant reference number RP-PG-0310-1004). He would also like to thank his current and previous supervisors, Dr Steven Kelly and Professor Nandi, respectively, and all colleagues, collaborators, friends, and family for their support.

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