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Expert F# 4.0

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F# 4 is a mature, open source, cross-platform, functional-first programming language which empowers users and organizations to tackle complex computing problems with simple, maintainable and robust code. F# 4.0 achieves unrivaled levels of programmer productivity and program clarity across multiple platforms including Windows, Linux, Android, OSX and iOS as well as HTML5 and GPUs. Expert F# 4.0 is about practical programming in a beautiful language that puts the power and elegance of data-rich functional programming into the hands of professional developers.

Expert F# 4.0 is:

- A comprehensive guide to the latest version of F# by the inventor of the language

- A treasury of F# techniques for practical problem-solving

- An in-depth case book of how F# applications and of F# 4.0 concepts, syntax, and features

F# isn't just another functional programming language. It's a general-purpose language ideal for solving real-world development problems. F# seamlessly integrates functional, imperative, object-oriented and query programming styles so you can flexibly and elegantly solve any programming problem. F# 4.0 combines this with the seamless data-integration capabilities of F# Information-Rich Programming.

Whatever your background, you'll find that F# is easy to learn, fun to use, and extraordinarily powerful. F# will change the way you think about--and go about--programming.

Written by F#'s inventor and two major F# community members, Expert F# 4.0 is a comprehensive and in-depth guide to the language and its use. Designed to help others become experts, the book quickly yet carefully describes the paradigms supported by F# language, and then shows how to use F# elegantly for a practical web, data, parallel and analytical programming tasks.

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

614 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 16, 2015

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About the author

Don Syme

8 books5 followers

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5 stars
9 (30%)
4 stars
13 (43%)
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6 (20%)
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
451 reviews5 followers
February 20, 2017
Solid overview of the language, however lack a bit on pointing out why things are how these are, or telling a bit more coherent story how things works together, wouldn't harm to tell a story of how F# match other languages etc.
Profile Image for Sebastian Gebski.
1,233 reviews1,416 followers
October 25, 2017
Rather specific kind of book that won't make you love F# if you don't love it already.
But it works really well as a language (+libs, +ecosystem, etc.) reference if you accept its convention - which is NOT about describing everything in details, but in many cases just giving you a start point & something to refer to: rather syntactically than conceptually. So if you have this (truly appreciated) attitude of tinkerer & hands-on-practitioner, you'll have plenty of material to have fun with -> BUT if you want to treat this book as a source of academic knowledge, this won't work for you at all.

What else? Obviously in terms of actual expertise & knowledge book is truly decent (well, it was written by D. Syme), so it's hard to complain on that. Nevertheless, I'm giving it ONLY 4 stars (maybe 4.25 ;>). Why so? I think I've benefited more from Wlaschin's book on FP using F# as this other book has better captured the idea of _idiomatic_ F# - and I find it absolutely critical, because if you (as a learner) don't get it, than F# is just an irritating, frankensteinish amalgamate of ideas, insonsistent syntaxes & paradigms.

However, if you already consider youself an expert in F# (I don't) and what you need is some kind of reference to more advanced content, this is (most likely) the book you're looking for.
Profile Image for Bartłomiej Falkowski.
268 reviews30 followers
November 6, 2023
I've read this book for two reasons:
1. I want to learn an advanced functional programming (low-priority on my todo list but still...). Being C# developer for so long time makes F# a natural, convenient and tempting choice.
2. It layed on my bookshelf for over five years I guess. I got it for free when I ordered a couple of other books in the online bookstore. The long waiting and dust collecting on it for so long time has softened me a bit and here we are - it's finally read.

Did I enjoy it? No. Absolutely not.

I needed a book that would transform experienced C# developer into more or less theoretically at least mediocre functional developer. It didn't.

I started with good attitude and a desire to be practical. After each chapter though, my diligence and attention started to decrease. In the end, I just skimmed through a bunch of chapters.

The book concentrates on various aspects of F# - functional programming and transition from C# is just a small part of it. We have basically everything here - from parsing XML and JSON, through ADO.NET, endding at building GUI and server-rendered clients for web applications.

It may be useful in the future but I'll look for other sources for now.
5 reviews
July 22, 2018
This was sort of a reread. I already read Expert F# 2.0 years ago and bought this book for a more up to date reference. Skimmed familiar sections (features of the language) but dove in deeper for the new material, or I should say, the material I'm less familiar with.

The book is a must-have for anyone using F#. It's a complete language reference by the originator of the language (Don Syme) but it goes further, adding best practises and idiomatic use of the language in several different areas. These include parsing, asynchronous and parallel code, symbolic processing, functional datastructures and more.

It's however not a learning reference for functional programming. When coming from another .NET language like C# you'll probably keep programming in an object-oriented imperative way in F#. To really maximise your F# experience you'll need previous exposure to functional programming or other references/courses. Don't get me wrong, all information is right there in the book but you won't get the required paradigm shift from this book alone.

Anyhow, recommended for your bookshelf if you're programming for the .NET framework using F#. And even if not using F#, you'll probably learn something from the different view on .NET.
Profile Image for m00nlight.
25 reviews
August 21, 2016
One of the best F# book currently available.

Have discussion about functional programming, imperative programming, object-oriented programming in F#. Also have chapters discussing about combiniation of these paradigms to build solid software system.

There are also discussion about topic like type provider and meta-lingual abstraction in F# which are very useful for advanced readers.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews

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