(F sharp) F# Learning Books

Foundations of F#
Publication Date: June 1, 2007 | ISBN-10: 1590597575 | ISBN-13: 978-1590597576 | Edition: 1

Functional programming (FP) is the future of .NET programming, and F# is much more than just an FP language. Every professional .NET programmer needs to learn about FP, and there's no better way to do it than by learning F#, and no easier way to learn F# than from Foundations of F#.

If you're already familiar with FP, youll find F# the language youve always dreamed of. All .NET programmers will find F# an exciting real-world alternative to C# and Visual Basic. This book is likely to have many imitators, but few true competitors. Written by F# evangelist Rob Pickering, and tech reviewed by F#'s main designer, Don Syme, this is an elegant, comprehensive introduction to all aspects of the language and an incisive guide to using F# for real-world professional development. F# is the future of programming (not just on .NET), and the future is now.


Beginning F#
Publication Date: December 21, 2009 | ISBN-10: 1430223898 | ISBN-13: 978-1430223894 | Edition: 1

Functional programming is perhaps the next big wave in application development. As experienced developers know, functional programming makes its mark by allowing application builders to develop solutions to complicated programming situations cleanly and efficiently. A rich history of functional languages, including Erlang and OCaml, leads the way to F#, Microsoft's effort to bring the elegance and focus of functional programming into the world of managed code and .NET.

With Beginning F#, you have a companion that that will help you explore F# and functional programming in a .NET environment. This book is both a comprehensive introduction to all aspects of the language and an incisive guide to using F# for real-world professional development.

Reviewed by Don Syme, the chief architect of F# at Microsoft Research, Beginning F# is a great foundation for exploring functional programming and its role in the future of application development.

What you’ll learn
- A deep familiarity with the tenets and advantages of functional programming.
- How to understand F#'s concise and elegant syntax.
- How to access the huge range of libraries and components that run on the .NET Framework.
- How to develop for real-world scenarios using functional programming and F#.
- How to develop realistic applications through a comprehensive tutorial-based approach.
- How to learn imperative and concurrent programming techniques within the functional programming paradigm.

Who this book is for
F# is the future of programming (not just on .NET), and the future is now. If you are already familiar with functional programming, you'll find Beginning F# a great introduction to the language itself. If you are new to the function programming arena, this book will also serve as a superb reference to FP in general and F# specifically.

Programming F# 3.0
Publication Date: October 26, 2012 | ISBN-10: 1449320295 | ISBN-13: 978-1449320294 | Edition: Second Edition

Why learn F#? With this guide, you’ll learn how this multi-paradigm language not only offers you an enormous productivity boost through functional programming, but also lets you develop applications using your existing object-oriented and imperative programming skills. You’ll quickly discover the many advantages of the language, including access to all the great tools and libraries of the .NET platform.

Reap the benefits of functional programming for your next project, whether you’re writing concurrent code, or building data- or math-intensive applications. With this comprehensive book, former F# team member Chris Smith gives you a head start on the fundamentals and walks you through advanced concepts of the F# language.

- Learn F#’s unique characteristics for building applications
- Gain a solid understanding of F#’s core syntax, including object-oriented and imperative styles
- Make your object-oriented code better by applying functional programming patterns
- Use advanced functional techniques, such as tail-recursion and computation expressions
- Take advantage of multi-core processors with asynchronous workflows and parallel programming
- Use new type providers for interacting with web services and information-rich environments
- Learn how well F# works as a scripting language

Expert F# 3.0
Publication Date: October 31, 2012 | ISBN-10: 1430246502 | ISBN-13: 978-1430246503 | Edition: Third Edition

Expert F# 3.0 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. In combination with .NET, F# achieves unrivaled levels of programmer productivity and program clarity.

Expert F# 3.0 is:
- A comprehensive guide to F# by the inventor of F#
- A treasury of F# techniques for practical problem-solving
- An in-depth case book of how F# applications and of F# 3.0 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# 3.0 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# 3.0 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!

What you’ll learn
- Explore F# and its features quickly and thoroughly in the introductory chapters
- Use F# with matching technologies including SQL, LINQ, ASP.NET and REST
- Build reactive, asynchronous, and distributed web applications with F#
- Interoperate with F# from other languages, especially C#
- Integrate data sources and services using F# 3.0 Information-Rich Programming
- Test, profile, and performance tune F# applications
- Create mobile applications, both web and native

Who this book is for
Expert F# 3.0 is for anyone interested in state-of-the-art programming for solving real-world problems. Programmers of all backgrounds will find it engrossing. For C#, Java and VB programmers, F# provides invaluable insights into the future of these languages. For lovers of Python, Ruby and other dynamic languages, F# shows how you can get most of the benefits of these languages while keeping strong types and good performance. For educators, F# is the answer to a decades-long prayer: a language based on strong computer science concepts that also excites and empowers, not just in the classroom, but also in the real world.


Functional Programming for the Real-World: With Examples in F# and C#

Functional programming languages like F#, Erlang, and Scala are attracting attention as an efficient way to handle the new requirements for programming multi-processor and high-availability applications. Microsoft's new F# is a true functional language and C# uses functional language features for LINQ and other recent advances.

Real-World Functional Programming is a unique tutorial that explores the functional programming model through the F# and C# languages. The clearly presented ideas and examples teach readers how functional programming differs from other approaches. It explains how ideas look in F#-a functional language-as well as how they can be successfully used to solve programming problems in C#. Readers build on what they know about .NET and learn where a functional approach makes the most sense and how to apply it effectively in those cases.

The reader should have a good working knowledge of C#. No prior exposure to F# or functional programming is required.

Purchase of the print book comes with an offer of a free PDF, ePub, and Kindle eBook from Manning. Also available is all code from the book.