4 ms·

The killer combination for programming languages or why I like F#

24 points by namin 18y ago

DanielBMarkham 18y ago
Plus if you're a functional noob like I am, you can pop out and do traditional OO/Procedural code. It slices, it dices. Heck -- probably even makes Julianne fries. Tying type inference to IntelliSense is a huge win for the programmer.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
lst 18y ago
Before you fall in love, make sure to hear some opposite opinion, like this one: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/9555f5757ec5150c http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/9555f5757e...
- DanielBMarkham 18y ago
  Was there a case made against F# in the cited text? Sounded more like a rant. I read it twice. I'm unable to discern what reasons the author puts forward against F#. Seems like most of his criticism is against that certain book.
  - icey 18y ago
    It looks like a response to a known troll in comp.lang.lisp to me. I don't think that the linked group message is really a good argument against F# as much as it is an acknowledgment that people really dislike Jon Harrop.
jimbokun 18y ago
"I used to be content programming an esoteric Scheme system in Emacs. Now, I am convinced by the killer combination of (1) a fun functional language (2) a widely-used platform with a rich library (3) a professional IDE with a good debugger. With (1) ML-like, (2) CLR, (3) Visual Studio, you get F#. With (1) Lisp, (2) JVM, (3) Eclipse, I guess you get Clojure." The irony is that, for Clojure, Emacs remains a pretty good IDE, while still allowing for the widely used platform and rich library. Will be hard for Eclipse to catch up given all the years spent making Emacs a good environment for Lisp style development, and the fact a Lisp is the Emacs extension language.
- namin 18y ago
  True :) The only thing I would miss in Emacs is a visual debugger. I used to write Scheme in a "code carefully so it works the first time around" mode. It worked out because I worked on small systems and Scheme has extremely clear semantics. But imagine having to dive into a framework-based project, big enough that you can't understand it all at once by reading the code. Then, I find that using a debugger and stepping through the code is a really good way to get a grasp of the system. Perhaps, slime provides a good debugging interface -- I just got hooked into visual debuggers before I could find out.
  - whalliburton 18y ago
    TRACE and BREAK.

24 points by namin 18y ago

Plus if you're a functional noob like I am, you can pop out and do traditional OO/Procedural code. It slices, it dices. Heck -- probably even makes Julianne fries. Tying type inference to IntelliSense is a huge win for the programmer.

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]

lst 18y ago

Before you fall in love, make sure to hear some opposite opinion, like this one: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/9555f5757ec5150c http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/9555f5757e...

DanielBMarkham 18y ago
Was there a case made against F# in the cited text? Sounded more like a rant. I read it twice. I'm unable to discern what reasons the author puts forward against F#. Seems like most of his criticism is against that certain book.
- icey 18y ago
  It looks like a response to a known troll in comp.lang.lisp to me. I don't think that the linked group message is really a good argument against F# as much as it is an acknowledgment that people really dislike Jon Harrop.

jimbokun 18y ago

"I used to be content programming an esoteric Scheme system in Emacs. Now, I am convinced by the killer combination of (1) a fun functional language (2) a widely-used platform with a rich library (3) a professional IDE with a good debugger. With (1) ML-like, (2) CLR, (3) Visual Studio, you get F#. With (1) Lisp, (2) JVM, (3) Eclipse, I guess you get Clojure." The irony is that, for Clojure, Emacs remains a pretty good IDE, while still allowing for the widely used platform and rich library. Will be hard for Eclipse to catch up given all the years spent making Emacs a good environment for Lisp style development, and the fact a Lisp is the Emacs extension language.

namin 18y ago
True :) The only thing I would miss in Emacs is a visual debugger. I used to write Scheme in a "code carefully so it works the first time around" mode. It worked out because I worked on small systems and Scheme has extremely clear semantics. But imagine having to dive into a framework-based project, big enough that you can't understand it all at once by reading the code. Then, I find that using a debugger and stepping through the code is a really good way to get a grasp of the system. Perhaps, slime provides a good debugging interface -- I just got hooked into visual debuggers before I could find out.
- whalliburton 18y ago
  TRACE and BREAK.