> C# is, imo, the best cross platform GC language. I really can't think of anything that comes close
How about F#? Isn't F# mostly C# with better ergonomics?
> C# is, imo, the best cross platform GC language. I really can't think of anything that comes close
How about F#? Isn't F# mostly C# with better ergonomics?
Personally I love F#, but I feel the community is probably even smaller than OCaml...
I once got a temporary F# role without any F# experience simply by having 7 YoE with C# and the knowledge that F# exists.
As much as I'd like to do more with it, the "just use F#" idea flaunted in this thread is a distant pipe dream for the vast majority of teams.
He means the runtime ".NET CLR". They have the same runtime.
It is but in practice it’s very hard to find programmers for it.
Lmao, functional programming is far from ergonomic
F# is hardly modern functional programming. It's more like a better python with types. And that's much more ergonomic than C#.
Python and F# are not very similar. A better comparison is OCaml. F# and OCaml are similar. They're both ML-style functional languages.
I'd much rather code F# than Python, it's more principled, at least at the small scale. But F# is in many ways closer to modern mainstream languages than a modern pure functional language. There's nothing scary about it. You can write F# mostly like Python if you want, i.e. pervasive mutation and side effects, if that's your thing.
If Python is the only language you have to compare other languages to, all other programming languages are going to look like "Python with X and Y differences". It makes no sense to compare Python to F# when OCaml exists and is a far closer relative. F# isn't quite "OCaml on .NET" but it's pretty close.
It absolutely does make sense to compare it to the worlds most popular programming language, especially when dismissed as "functional programming". Who benefits from an OCaml comparison? You think F# should be marketed to OCaml users who might want to try dotnet? That's a pretty small market.
Python is the world's most used scripting language, but for application programming languages there are other languages that are widely used and better to compare to F#. For example, C# and Java.
F# was pitched by Microsoft to be used in areas where Python dominates, especially for scripting in the finance domain and "rapid application development". So it doesn't make sense at all that C# and Java are a "better comparison".
> F# was pitched by Microsoft to be used in areas where Python dominates
Haha, no. Microsoft barely talks about F# at all, and has largely left the evolution of the language up to the open source community that supports it. Furthermore, you shouldn't take your cues about what a language is best suited for from marketing types, you should evaluate it based on its strengths as a language and broader ecosystem. If you seriously doubt that C# is a better comparison to F# than Python, then I suspect you haven't used either C# or F# and you're basing your views on marketing fluff.
Less of the personal attacks please, you know nothing about me. I actually think it is you that is missing context here. Don Syme personally visited and presented at a variety of investment banks. He was the creator not a marketing type. I was present at one of his pitches and met him. One bank, Credit Suisse ended up adopting it. Any comparisons he made to C# where based around readability and time to market (C# is very verbose and boilerplate heavy compared to both Python and F#). This was all on the 2010-2015 timeframe. Python ended up winning in these markets. My point has always been that this now puts it in a difficult position, it's simply not radical enough to disrupt but still carries the perceived "functional programming" barrier to entry.
It's so weird to describe F# as "Python with Types." First of all, Python is Python with Types. And C# is much more similar to Python than F# is.
It all depends on the lens one chooses to view them. None of them are really "functional programming" in the truly modern sense, even F#. As more and more mainstream languages get pattern matching and algebraic data types (such as Python), feature lambdas and immutable values, then these languages converge. However, you don't really get the promises of functional programming such as guaranteed correct composition and easier reasoning/analysis, for that one needs at least purity and perhaps even totality. That carries the burden of proof, which means things get harder and perhaps too hard for some (e.g. the parent poster).
If purity is a requirement for "real" functional programming, then OCaml or Clojure aren't functional. Regarding totality, even Haskell has partial functions and exceptions.
Both OCaml and Clojure are principled and well designed languages, but they are mostly evolutions of Lisp and ML from the 70s. That's not where functional programming is today. Both encourage a functional style, which is good. And maybe that's your definition of a "functional language". But I think that definition will get increasingly less useful over time.
What is an example of a real functional language for you?
Haskell. But there are other examples of "pure functional programming". And the state of the art is dependently typed languages, which are essentially theorem provers but can be used to extract working code.
Like LEAN4 ?
I, too, am curious and keep checking back for a reply!
Sure, Python has types as part of the syntax, but Python doesn't have types like Java, C#, etc. have types. They are not pervasive and the semantics are not locked down.
Exactly what I've observed in practice because most devs have no background in writing functional code and will complain when asked to do so.
Passing or returning a function seems a foreign concept to many devs. They know how to use lambda expressions, but rarely write code that works this way.
We adopted ErrorOr[0] and have a rule that core code must return ErrorOr<T>. Devs have struggled with this and continue to misunderstand how to use the result type.
[0] https://github.com/amantinband/error-or
That really depends on your preferred coding style.
honestly this sounds like you've never really done it. FP is much better for ergonomics, developer productivity, correctness. All the important things when writing code.
I like FP, but your claim is just as baseless as the parent’s.
If FP was really better at “all the important things”, why is there such a wide range of opinions, good but also bad? Why is it still a niche paradigm?