Expert F# (Expert's Voice in .Net)

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 609 pages
• Published by: Apress December 4, 2007
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1590598504
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1590598504
• Book Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.1 x 1.6 inches
• Weighs: 2.5 pounds

Reader Reviews
This book is the perfect companion to bring along on your adventure into the world of F#! I had the pleasure of proofreading Expert F# several months ago and so, while it just became available at Amazon today, I've already spent many happy hours with it. F# is a wonderfully expressive and practical language and, at the same time, very elegant. This book will help the reader to apply this newfound power and to appreciate how even the most obscure features all seem to "hang together" so beautifully. The first half of the book teaches the language with an excellent example-driven approach; making it fun and useful from the start. Separate chapters cover each supported programming paradigm: functional, imperative, object-oriented and language-oriented; along with chapters on solid engineering techniques such as encapsulation and packaging, and working well with other .NET code. The second half of the book applies the language to various technologies (WinForms, web, database, ...) and to various very interesting domains including lexing and parsing, asynchronous and concurrent programming (a particularly strong suit). My absolute favorites were the symbolic differentiation and propositional logic samples in chapter 12 - these left me in a state of awe! Also, the second half covers more engineering concerns such as testing and debugging, interop and library design. Throughout the book are sprinkled many little nuggets of wisdom from the authors; especially helpful to those who (like me) are struggling to rationalize experience in OO and imperative programming with the functional mindset. The book contains an enormous amount of information; an essentially complete coverage of the language. However, it simply can't cover everything. Some topics missing include application to some specific technologies such as WPF and Silverlight. Also, functional data structures and meta-programming (with the extremely powerful F# quotations mechanism) are only lightly covered. It's a very well written and well organized book. It makes for a great read when you're first mastering the language and makes for a great reference to keep on your shelf thereafter. Comments (3) | | (Report this)