Are the C programming language and its object-oriented offspring - C++, C#, Objective-C - still well-suited to the requirements of multithreaded, network-oriented computing environments today? That's the question on the minds of engineers at Microsoft Research, whose latest programming language is today being officially moved off the back burner. The F# language has received the company's official blessing.
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Member since:2006-07-04
All (well most) languages have their place.
You mentioned OCaml's advantage over F#.
F#'s advantage over OCaml is that F# code can seamlessly operate with that of any .NET language, as well as access the .NET Framework libraries (e.g. BCL, WinForms, WPF, DirectX, LINQ), and non-Framework .NET libraries such as XNA and the numerous 3rd-party .NET libs. One could also program SilverLight 1.1 applets with F# (and SilverLight is x-platform (Windows and Mac, Linux (via Moonlight); IE, Safari, and Firefox), so SilverLight F# code is x-platform as well).
F#'s other advantage is that once it's productized, it'll have major financial backing from a large, high-profile, non-niche company. Including F# in a future Visual Studio or a A "Visual F# Express", for example, could be huge.
Edited 2007-10-24 00:32
Member since:2007-09-24
Not very sure about becoming a professional product.
It belongs to the Research section, at least for now, so it only has some acceptance from Microsoft, specially from the economical backup point of view.
Look at IronPython, yes, is fine and nice and etc, and backed up by Microsoft, but where is the industrial support or follow up?
Member since:2007-02-22
Member since:
2006-01-03
F# = Microsoft Only
OCaml = x-platform