3 ms·

I like F# and I think its a great language. But I also think it will always be second class for Microsoft.

by ecshafer 4y ago

phosphorco 4y ago
Sure, but does that really matter? Second class doesn't mean they aren't investing in it... and some of the coolest use cases for F# (Fable ecosystem) falls outside of MSFT's scope entirely. It's a small community with great libraries/support, and you can generally bet that the folks who are excited by it and want to use it are pretty strong technically.
akra 4y ago
Maybe so. But it benefits from the larger ecosystem that it can piggyback onto. This is often important to people selecting a language bound by constraints in their product, company, etc and can't be dismissed. .NET/JIT/GC improvements, improvements to core API's, enterprise libraries/SDK's, etc. C#'s improvements do tend to flow into F#, if not from a language/syntax perspective from an ecosystem perspective. An upgrade of .NET version for example also benefits a F# developer greatly even if no work is done on the language at all for example. A performance improvement in say ASP.NET Core benefits many of the F# web frameworks too. A language/tool is more than just its syntax - you need to learn the libraries, package management, build tools, etc as well and be confident of their long term support/improvement. All dimensions are important. At this stage F# does have more broader technology support and interoperability as a result of this "second class" status. Whether this matters depends on the use case, company, and engineering resources at hand. Being second class may be more feasible for a language that can ride the tail wind may be better than standing on its own two feet? Right now in my context personally I could use F# for my company's apps and not hit too many blockers, I probably couldn't use OcAML given the technologies we use day to day.

3 ms·

I like F# and I think its a great language. But I also think it will always be second class for Microsoft.

by ecshafer 4y ago

I like F# and I think its a great language. But I also think it will always be second class for Microsoft.

phosphorco 4y ago
Sure, but does that really matter? Second class doesn't mean they aren't investing in it... and some of the coolest use cases for F# (Fable ecosystem) falls outside of MSFT's scope entirely. It's a small community with great libraries/support, and you can generally bet that the folks who are excited by it and want to use it are pretty strong technically.
akra 4y ago
Maybe so. But it benefits from the larger ecosystem that it can piggyback onto. This is often important to people selecting a language bound by constraints in their product, company, etc and can't be dismissed. .NET/JIT/GC improvements, improvements to core API's, enterprise libraries/SDK's, etc. C#'s improvements do tend to flow into F#, if not from a language/syntax perspective from an ecosystem perspective. An upgrade of .NET version for example also benefits a F# developer greatly even if no work is done on the language at all for example. A performance improvement in say ASP.NET Core benefits many of the F# web frameworks too. A language/tool is more than just its syntax - you need to learn the libraries, package management, build tools, etc as well and be confident of their long term support/improvement. All dimensions are important. At this stage F# does have more broader technology support and interoperability as a result of this "second class" status. Whether this matters depends on the use case, company, and engineering resources at hand. Being second class may be more feasible for a language that can ride the tail wind may be better than standing on its own two feet? Right now in my context personally I could use F# for my company's apps and not hit too many blockers, I probably couldn't use OcAML given the technologies we use day to day.