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

by Don Syme (Author), Adam Granicz (Author), Antonio Cisternino (Author)
Key Phrases: graph style, platform invoke, protected mode, Visual Studio, Program Files, Hello World (more...)

4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description
<body> Expert F# <div>

Expert F# is about practical programming in a beautiful language that puts the power and elegance of functional programming into the hands of .NET developers. In combination with .NET, F# achieves unrivaled levels of programmer productivity and program clarity. This books serves as

The authoritative guide to F# by the designer of F#

A comprehensive reference of F# concepts, syntax, and features

A treasury of expert F# techniques for practical, real-world programming

<br />

While inspired by OCaml, F# isn't just another functional programming language. Drawing on many of the strengths of both OCaml and .NET, it's a general-purpose language ideal for real-world development. F# integrates functional, imperative, and object-oriented programming styles so you can flexibly and elegantly solve programming problems, and brings .NET development alive with interactive execution. Whatever your background, you'll find that F# is easy to learn, fun to use, and extraordinarily powerful. F# will help change the way you think about and go about programming.

Written by F#'s designer and two active contributors, Expert F# is the authoritative, comprehensive, and in-depth guide to the language and its use. Designed to help others become experts, the book gives a thorough introduction to the F# language from quick essentials to in-depth advanced topics such as active pattern matching, aggregate data types and operators, sequence expressions, lazy values, mutable data and side-effects, generics, type augmentations, functional decomposition and code organization.

The second half of the book is devoted to examining the practical application of F#, providing elegant solutions to common programming tasks including UI implementation, data access, web and distributed programming, symbolic and numerical computations, concurrent programming, testing, profiling, and interoperability with other languages. The latest hot developments in F# and .NET are also addressed, including Active Patterns, implicit class construction, integration with LINQ over relational data, meta programming and useful tips for working with Visual Studio and F# command-line tools.

The world's foremost experts in F# show you how to program in F# the way they do!

</div>

About the Author
<div id="middle"> <div>

Don Syme

Don Syme is the main designer of F# and has been a functional programmer since 1989. Since joining Microsoft Research in 1998, he's been a seminal contributor to a wide variety of leading-edge projects, including generics in C# and the .NET Common Language Runtime. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory in 1999.

Adam Granicz

Adam Granicz is the founder of IntelliFactory and a native of Hungary. He has done research on extensible functional compilers, formal environments, and domain-specific languages. He has consulted for EPAM Systems, the leading software outsourcing company in CE Europe, and he is an industry domain expert in gambling, airline and travel package distribution, reverse logistics, and insurance/health-care. He holds a Master's degree from the California Institute of Technology.

Antonio Cisternino

Antonio Cisternino is assistant professor in the Computer Science Department of the University of Pisa. His primary research is on meta-programming and domain-specific languages on virtual-machine-based execution environments. He's been active in the .NET community since 2001, and recently developed annotated C#, an extension of C#, and Robotics4.NET, a framework for programming robots with .NET. Antonio holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Pisa.

</div> </div>

Product Details

Hardcover: 609 pages
Publisher: Apress (December 4, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1590598504
ISBN-13: 978-1590598504
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.1 x 1.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #21,662 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in these categories: (What's this?)
#1 in Books > Computers & Internet > Programming > Functional
#58 in Books > Computers & Internet > Programming > Software Design, Testing & Engineering > Object-Oriented Design

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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!

Inside This Book (learn more)

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
graph style, platform invoke, protected mode, stmt list, library design guidelines, light syntax option, sym opt, object interface types, generic hashing, workflow syntax, comment lexbuf, using generic comparison, lookaside table, accessibility annotations, bool vol, lexeme lexbuf, token lexbuf, using sequence expressions, immutable data structures, asynchronous workflow, lexing and parsing, generated lexer, mutable locals, lazy values, fun args

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Visual Studio, Program Files, Hello World, Common Language Runtime, Microsoft Corporation, John Smith, British Museum, Visual Basic, Internet Explorer, Server Express, Web Tools, Server Explorer, Flash Player, Composite of Scene, Page Language, Software Developer, Courier New, Using Further, Extension Type Language Characteristics, Pine Road, Background Worker, Hiding Things, Reference Assemblies, Values Member, Integrated Security

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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!

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Customer Reviews

17 Reviews

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4.1 out of 5 stars (17 customer reviews)

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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect companion for your F# adventure!, December 3, 2007

By	Ashley Feniello "AshleyF" (Redmond, WA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly worthy of its title, January 14, 2008

By	Andrei Formiga (Joao Pessoa, Brasil) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

When a new programming language arrives and manages to make an impact, books about it will certainly appear. However, most often the books will be geared to beginners, to people that is either not very experienced in programming or in the programming paradigms embodied by the language. For a experienced programmer, these books stop right when the fun would begin: the advanced stuff, the corners, the details are left out.

Expert F#, as suggested by its title, is not like this: it is aimed at more experienced programmers. The book will not teach you, for instance, what is functional programming or hammer to your head the best ways to use lists, an ubiquitous data structure in functional languages. But it explains how the things work in F#, so that programmers already familiar with other functional languages will have no trouble picking it up. F# also has object-oriented capabilities, which are explained in a chapter, without however going much deep into OO concepts; the book is about the language, not the paradigms.

And it does this well. Roughly half of the book is about the language itself, the other half are examples of applications and how to use some important libraries. As I was already familiar with OCaml and Haskell, I mostly skimmed through chapters 1 to 4, reading more closely starting with chapters 5 (generic types) and 6 (how objects fit into F#). From chapter 7 (encapsulating and packaging your code) on, the book starts to get really interesting; the next one is about common techniques, and chapter 9 is the best in the first part, explaining language-oriented programming, an area where functional languages really shine.

There are mandatory chapters about Windows Forms (11), Web programming (14) using .NET and data access, including how to use LINQ in F#, but I really liked chapters 12 (working with symbolic representations), and 13 (concurrency and asynchronous workflows). The former includes two cool examples: a symbolic differentiator and a verifier for logic circuits based on BDDs (Binary Decision Diagrams). There are other important and advanced chapters treating topics like interoperation with C and COM, debugging and testing F# programs, and F# library design.

All in all a very good book about the best current functional language to use in the Windows platform. I have two minor quibbles about it, though: the first few chapters about the language really could be made more interesting (although it didn't affect me much, as I only skimmed them) and some of the more exciting new features of F# could be explained in more detail. Specifically, workflows and active patterns. They are quite recent additions to the language, however, and there is some additional material promised to feature in the book's site.

Anyway, I will keep this book nearby when programming in F#. It is this kind of book that you'd want to keep around, even after learning the language.

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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Good, The Bad, The (not so) Ugly, January 5, 2008

By	Eric R. Newhuis (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The Good

- Practical.
- High example density.
- Broad coverage of a lot of practical F# topics.
- Good depth on all the important practical stuff.
- I felt like I learned a lot, not only about F#, but about some cool C# features too.
- I felt like I'd be a lot more productive as a programmer if I could master the language.

The (not so) Bad

- Structurally, I initially got lost with some of the more complex examples. And it was straining to page back and forth re-reading things until I grasped the concepts. The density of information in the text sometimes makes it less valuable as a teaching aid and more valuable as a reference.

The (not so) Ugly

- I could not get one of the async examples to actually compile. I had to search the web for some hints to add declarations that seem to have been omitted from either the example code or F# implementation itself. In short, the example code, my development environment, F# itself, of some combination thereof was missing what appears to be an extension method for WebRequest.GetResponseAsync. I had to code it myself. But once I did, it worked! (This might not be a criticism of the book.)

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Assumes Experience with Functional Programming
This book states in the beginning that you don't have to know functional programming in order to understand the material. I would argue that this is not true. Read more

Published 26 days ago by Mikael �hman

3.0 out of 5 stars Study OCaml First!!
F# is basically OCaml for .net. This book covers details of F# for .net. However I felt confused about some syntax of F# which this book does not explain clearly. Read more

Published 27 days ago by Yi C. Chang

5.0 out of 5 stars A solid reference, and a pleasure to read
Reviewer's background - some academic work in functional programming (Lisp), and 23 years as a developer in the aerospace business (Ada, C++, etc). Read more

Published 1 month ago by Stephen Hosking

1.0 out of 5 stars (for F# Expert) F#
Early examples that simply do not work. Some have leave out necessary #r or 'open' statements. How do you expect the reader to proceed in this book without having a foundation of... Read more

Published 1 month ago by Marshall

3.0 out of 5 stars Good book, but beware tiny fonts in Kindle version
This is a good introduction to F#. I would rate it at 4 stars for its content, but I wish I had known, however, that the kindle version of the book does not scale the font size... Read more

Published 3 months ago by Banana

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book
The authors clearly have an intimate understanding of the language. The book presents F# in solid detail, including an explanation of its finer points. Read more

Published 5 months ago by Michael J. Gage

5.0 out of 5 stars This is "it"
I own the three F# books out there: [FF], [FS] and [EF] (this one).
[FF] is the one that got me started, probably because I share some personality traits with the author... Read more

Published 8 months ago by Steven Burns

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book on F#
Expert F# does a great job explaining why and how you should use F#. It is not a general purpose tutorial on functional programming. Read more

Published 9 months ago by Michael Giagnocavo

5.0 out of 5 stars Good book!
It's definitely a good book. I've read a few sections in it and have been impressed with what I've seen. Read more

Published 12 months ago by G. Jenks

2.0 out of 5 stars Seems kinda rushed, disjointed
This is my amended review after reading the other reviews for the first time. I totally agree with Muhammad, who also gave this book a 2 star rating. Read more

Published 13 months ago by G. F. Davis

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	Don Syme is NOT the inventor of F#	3	July 2007
	F# and its OCaml roots (was "Don Syme is NOT the inventor of F#")	1	May 2007

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