I pulled a hobby C# project off the shelf and realized what I really wanted to do internally was pass functions around, which is a PITA in C#. I heard of this new language, F#, which is supposed to be a functional language. Maybe I should learn that.
Puzzled over the source code of FParsec…which is not the best way to learn F#.
Wrote a crappy program that solved an immediate research problem at work searching through logs of an IMAP server.
Wrote a demonstration of parallel SQL DB reading which would solve a slowness issue with the company’s software.
No hope of introducing F# at this company. Quit my job and went on sabbatical for almost a year learning by writing blog posts and speaking whenever possible.
Met a young entrepreneur at the S.F. F# meetup who just got funding for a start-up and wanted to use F#.
I’ve been working almost exclusively with F# and SQL now for over 7 years.
I already knew OCaml and found myself using Windows much more often than before, and F# looked like a good compromise between supporting most ML features and having good Windows support and lots of libraries. I still prefer OCaml as a language, but F# is invaluable when I want to interact with Windows APIs or some .NET library/framework.
I learned it 9 years ago, to contribute to VsVim (at the time, VsVim was almost entirely F# but since then parts have been moved over to C#). It was a great experience. I learned a ton about Vim and software engineering in general.
It all started over 11 years ago.
I just started using F#, around a month ago IIRC.
What drew me to F# was purely the syntax.
The first time I encountered it I was enchanted, mesmerized, because the code looked so beautiful.
It was actually thanks to a post shared here on Lobsters, I should find it so I can link it for reference.
I already knew OCaml and found myself using Windows much more often than before, and F# looked like a good compromise between supporting most ML features and having good Windows support and lots of libraries. I still prefer OCaml as a language, but F# is invaluable when I want to interact with Windows APIs or some .NET library/framework.
I learned it 9 years ago, to contribute to VsVim (at the time, VsVim was almost entirely F# but since then parts have been moved over to C#). It was a great experience. I learned a ton about Vim and software engineering in general.
You should be tagging your F# stories with
ml, too.Good to know, will do in future - but the edit window has gone; perhaps an admin can do it for this post (EDIT: oh it is already done, nevermind).
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