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I just found out that the September 2008 CTP of F# is now available!  I’ve been anticipating this latest release ever since Don Syme announced that they would be moving the language from a research experiment to a full-fledged product.

Perhaps the single-most anticipated feature was the new-and-improved F# project system.  The old versions had a really clunky interface based on a very old version of VSX (Visual Studio Extensibility).  They’ve added support recently that lets you create a library (assembly) in F# and reference it from any other project in the solution.  Cool! Now you can write your algorithm (where functional programming might be more suitable) in an F# library project, and then reference that library from another C# project which might contain the graphical interface.  Take a look at the screenshots over on Brian’s blog.

I’ve always loved the F# interactive window as part of Visual Studio that lets you evaluate any expression — dubbed by Don Syme as "explorative scripting".  It makes it easy to just try things out without having to create code in a separate project.  This also easily lends itself to writing scripts.  As an electrical engineer, I’ve spent a lot of time writing numerical analysis scripts in MATLAB, so I feel quite at home in this environment.  And since F# can interface seamlessly with any .NET language, I can even take advantage of all of the cool .NET libraries out there from within my scripts.

Here are a few more interesting F# links that I’ve picked up lately:

• Units of Measure in F#: Part One, Introducing Units
• F# Scripts–Zero to Execute in Ten Seconds
• Microsoft F#, September 2008 Community Technology Preview Download Link
• Blackjack in F#
• Functional Programming and F#: Newton Basin Fractal Example Code
• Trending F# Jobs in the UK

In addition, a new F# book was released last week: F# for Scientists. I managed to get my hands on a copy and I have to say, it is fantastic.  It covers everything from the basics of the language, through functional programming concepts, to advanced list processing, to data structures, to numerical analysis, to lexing and parsing, to multithreading, asynchronous operations, optimization, and even 3D DirectX graphics!  As if that list of topics wasn’t extensive enough, the book even talks about file I/O, .NET interop, databases interactions, Excel import/export, simple graph plotting, interfacing with Mathematica, web services, and integrating with LINQ.  Even though it only weighs in at 323 pages, it is a massive amount of useful information.  I’ve already read the first few chapters and have really enjoyed it.  I can’t wait to find the time to finish it. I think that source code for the book will be available soon. This book becomes the 3rd book about F# on Amazon, right behind Foundations of F# by Robert Pickering and Expert F# by Don Syme (both also highly recommended).

Can’t wait to try the new F# CTP out!  I already have it installed

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