Expert F# 3.0, 3rd Edition

Expert F# 3.0 is about practical programming in a beautiful language that puts the power and elegance of data-rich functional programming into the hands of professional developers. In combination with .NET, F# achieves unrivaled levels of programmer productivity and program clarity.

Expert F# 3.0 is:

• A comprehensive guide to F# by the inventor of F#
• A treasury of F# techniques for practical problem-solving
• An in-depth case book of how F# applications and of F# 3.0 concepts, syntax, and features

F# isn’t just another functional programming language. It’s a general-purpose language ideal for solving real-world development problems. F# seamlessly integrates functional, imperative, object-oriented and query programming styles so you can flexibly and elegantly solve any programming problem. F# 3.0 combines this with the seamless data-integration capabilities of F# Information-Rich Programming. 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 F# community members, Expert F# 3.0 is a comprehensive and in-depth guide to the language and its use. Designed to help others become experts, the book quickly yet carefully describes the paradigms supported by F# language, and then shows how to use F# elegantly for a practical web, data, parallel and analytical programming tasks.

The world’s 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 matching technologies including SQL, LINQ, ASP.NET and REST
• Build reactive, asynchronous, and distributed web applications with F#
• Interoperate with F# from other languages, especially C#
• Integrate data sources and services using F# 3.0 Information-Rich Programming
• Test, profile, and performance tune F# applications
• Create mobile applications, both web and native

Who this book is for

Expert F# 3.0 is for anyone interested in state-of-the-art programming for solving real-world problems. Programmers of all backgrounds will find it engrossing. For C#, Java and VB programmers, F# provides invaluable insights into the future of these languages. For lovers of Python, Ruby and other dynamic languages, F# shows how you can get most of the benefits of these languages while keeping strong types and good performance. For educators, F# is the answer to a decades-long prayer: a language based on strong computer science concepts that also excites and empowers, not just in the classroom, but also in the real world.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Your First F# Program – Getting Started With F#
3. Introducing Functional Programming
4. Introducing Imperative Programming
5. Understanding Types in Functional Programming
6. Programming with Objects
7. Encapsulating and Organizing Your Code
8. Working with Textual Data
9. Working with Sequences and Structured Data
10. Numeric Programming and Charting
11. Reactive, Asynchronous, and Parallel Programming
12. Symbolic Programming with Structured Data
13. Integrating External Data and Services
14. Building Smart Web Applications
15. Building Mobile Web Applications
16. Visualization and Graphical User Interfaces
17. Language-Oriented Programming: Advanced Techniques
18. Libraries and Interoperating with Other Languages
19. Packaging, Debugging and Testing F# Code
20. Designing F# Libraries