Re: F# fsharp

On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 6:03 AM, Morten Brodersen <[email protected]> wrote:
> I always find it amusing when Paul Graham (or Crash Bandicot for that
> matter) gets dragged out of the closet and dusted off whenever somebody
> wants to show how functional languages "gives you an edge".
>
> There are thousands of successful products (including games) programmed in
> non-functional programming languages and only an extremely limited set of
> successful products programmed in functional languages. There aren't many
> examples to pick from. So that's why people still talk about Paul Graham
> today many many years after he became mightily impressed with his own LISP
> skills and started bragging about it on his website.

Indeed, if LISP is such a wonderful engine of industrial success, why
aren't there many more examples to draw upon?

> And hey don't get me wrong. I am having great fun programming in LISP,
> Clojure and Erlang in my spare time and I would highly recommend that you
> learn those languages even if you don't intend to use those languages to
> make a living. However I still choose C++ or C# for production work.

But for game development, let's leave the "functional" hoopla out of
it and return to some of my original questions.  F# is a
multi-paradigm language, it is not "pure" functional the way Haskell
is.  OCaml already proved that you can mix functional and OO
programming just fine without sacrificing performance; F# is the same.
 Some people say they're using C# as a "scripting" language.  F# is
clearly a better scripting language than C#.  For one thing, F# has
got an interpreter available.  For another, it's got lists built
straight into the syntax, and other "higher level" programming
goodies, like pattern matching and type inference.  So if it compiles
to pretty close the speed of C#, why would you ever choose C# over F#
as a *scripting* solution?  The only reason I can see, is lack of
familiarity with F#.

F# vs. Lua, well that's a whole 'nother debate.  But F# vs. C#?
Should be a slam dunk.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
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