Functional Programming in .NET using C# and F# (Manning Greenpaper)

Functional programming languages have been around for a while and were always astonishing for their ability to express the ideas in a succinct, declarative way allowing the developer to focus on the essence of problem rather than on technical details of the solution. Recently, functional paradigm is gaining new prominence as an efficient way to handle development of multi-processor, parallel and asynchronous applications.

Functional ideas are arising in C# as well as in other main-stream languages and functional languages are becoming an alternative for real-world projects. Also, Microsoft recently introduced a new language called F#, which has a strong background in traditional functional languages, but as a .NET language also benefits from the rich .NET and Visual Studio ecosystem.

Available via MEAP | 500 pages
Softbound print: March 2009 (est.)

This article is partially an excerpt from my book Real-world Functional Programming in .NET [1]. Thanks to my editors at Manning I have the permission to publish it on my blog. We’ll look at several aspects of functional programming and how the same concepts, which are essential for the functional paradigm, look in the F# and in C# 3.0 with LINQ. We will shortly look at the basic programming language features like lambda functions and type inference that are now available in both F# and C#. Functional programming isn’t only about language features, but also about using different programming style, so we’ll look at some high level concepts as well. These include using immutable data structures for developing code that can be executed in parallel and writing code in a more declarative style.

Thanks to the combination of C# 3.0 and F#, this article shows the ideas in a way that should be familiar to you in C#, but also shows a further step that you can take with a primarilly functional language F#. If you're a .NET developer and you want to understand what functional programming is and how it can help you to become better and more productive then continue reading. If you'll find this article interesting, then don't forget to check out the book, which explains everything in larger detail and discusses many other interesting ideas.

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