Functional Programming Using F# 1st Edition

This is one of the best F# books out there, it has an academic, intellectual feel and avoids the predictable structure that's come to characterize modern programming language books which are basically enhanced reference books. It's not about F# per se, rather it's about functional programming as a discipline using F# as the programming language. You can't really learn F# without understanding functional concepts and their history in the theory of computation and computability. This book places functional programming first and F# second and you'll learn the language better and deeper because of this.

When learning a new language I tend to read a handful of books before I start doing anything serious. The other related books were either out of date, poorly written or strangely ordered such that I had to skip ahead to understand what I was currently reading. So I quickly tired of reading them.I enjoyed this book because the writing is straightforward with relevant examples for each topic, a final summary and a series of exercises at the end of each chapter. Clearly the authors know how to present the material in a way that makes it easy to learn. I found myself engaged in the material and liked the pacing which was perfect for chipping away at my imperative prejudges. Since I consider myself and expert in OO and imperative programming I was pleased that the authors stayed focussed on functional programming and kept imperative features to a minimum.However I'm subtracting 1 star for the following reasons:1. I have the kindle version of the book and occasionally get annoyed by the typographical errors. I'm an experienced programmer so I didn't get roadblocked but it is annoying none the less.2. The math does not render clearly on a Kindle tablet, however looks fine on an iPad3. I was unable to find an answer key for the exercises on the author's website. Although this is minor, if provided with exercises I would like to check my results.4. The chapter on sequences (chapter 11) should have been introduced earlier, ideally just before or after the chapter on collections (chapter 5). I suppose this is because the book was translated from an earlier book on ML and the F# specific stuff was added at the end.Regardless of my dislikes, I do strongly recommend this book.

I found this to be a great start in F# and functional programming. I have 8 other F# books on my bookshelf for comparison. It took me about two months work to complete, but it was well worth the effort, the 50+ coding exercises that I worked helped round out my understanding. A couple of caveats: I am a mathematician so the mathematical examples suited me fine, but some other reviewers found fault here. Also, the authors are academics, so they have designed the book to be about one semester of material with some additional topics. Finally, they state in the Preface that the first six chapters form a standard course in functional programming (there are thirteen overall). So, if some topics are left out that you are interested in, it might have been by design with brevity in mind. Now, I have studied and used many other languages over the years: C#, R, Java, C++ and many years ago: Pascal (remember that), Fortran and even Lisp (the one language that I actually hated at the time). But F# will be my goto language for several years to come. It is excellent for some of the mathematical programming I do and of course has great potential in AI.

This is a first rate survey of F# for academia.F# is in the ML family of languages. ML had already started supplanting Scheme as a lingua franca in academia in the early 80s, so a book on F# for academia makes a lot of sense. In fact, F#'s fastest path towards acceptance in industry might well come via an indirect route through exposure in academia.If you're in academia, using F# instead of C# would typically be a no-brainer. (For instance, you'd have to be glutton for punishment to write a compiler in C# when you could use F# instead.)If you are a C# programmer, is this book for you? Or would an F# via C# book be better? That would depend on a lot of things; like personal preference, and how much of an academic background you have.One thing I like about academic books is how concise they are. (.Net books, by comparison, are typically verbose; with thousand page tomes being common.)Another thing I like about academic books are the examples; which are typically drawn from mathematics and computer science. (.Net books, by comparison, often have sophomoric examples with subject matter like zombies and cars; which I don't like.)The coverage of monads is excellent. The discussion on monadic parsers is great material.The fractal examples are fantastic; but showing them using Windows Forms (rather than XAML/WPF) seems schizophrenic to me. If you're cutting edge enough to want to use F#, why not also be cutting edge enough to use the latest and greatest GUI technology that Windows has to offer?!Conclusion: highly recommended. Eloquent, nicely done; but weak on applied aspects of F# (albeit that's not the focus nor purpose of this book).

The book did very little to show you how to practically use Visual Studio to deliver F# solutions. It just focused on the language itself. While the language is the important focus. Not having a practical way to deliver value from your code leave the feel that only half the story is being told.I also found many of the examples to not be explained well and ambiguous. I would not recommend this book.

This book is largely intended for academic and scientific use. If you want an introduction to the language for general use I would not recommend it. It also might have been helpful if the authors had a native English speaker review their grammar - their phraseology is like reading someone speaking in a Scandinavian accent.

This is a first rate book that covers functional programming in f sharp. It is straight to the point and does not waste any words (unlike other mammoth volumes you sometimes get on popular .NET languages).It is a more academic book than others in that the many examples and exercises are the style you would get on a university course, however I believe this is better than the hypothetical examples in other types of books.I am having to go through each chapter twice, once to read it and again to help solve the exercises. Not everything is covered in f sharp, but what isn't is readily available on line.The reason for the four stars is more to do with the book binding than the contents, the cover became curled after a short while and it is difficult to lay the book flat to input the examples.

A proper introduction to F# - Includes:- F#'s use as a functional language - to a good programming standard using the functional style in the way academia intends- F#'s place as another .NET languageFor the academics- Doesn't explain the academic theory behind functional programming, so won't have you thinking in B-reductions, etc

It's really good introduction to the language.Now I'm read another one beginner book for F# because this book was too much simple.I advise this only for someone that really don't know anything about functional languages.

I was looking for an F# book and functional programming fundamentals. It wasn't much of a guide for F# for me and I eventually resorted to online tutorials. Its not complex just not a guide.