Success and Kinesthetic Learning
An Overnight Success Twenty Years in the Making #
I really enjoyed watching these interviews with Don Syme, for the context as well as candor and humor he brings to the conversation. But I also liked the structure of the interview, where background info was displayed to “season” the screen as Don responded to questions.
%[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNAb04V4liA]
%[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4j7LQApfEY]
It shows that F# may seem like a newcomer to certain fields, but that has more to do with where it can be deployed and the underpinnings supported by the .NET ecosystem more than F# itself. With .NET 6 Long Term Support and new tooling like .NET interactive, F# will compare favorably with a wide variety of general purpose and domain specific languages, and with that I expect adoption will increase across the board.
Kinesthetic Learning #
There’s no substitute for learning while doing. But I’m also a reader. So I set up a large music stand in my home office with several books perched on it which I’ve started to refer as my “F# bookshelf”. I’m currently working through Isaac Abraham’s “Get Programming with F#” but I will thumb through others for reference and to occasionally provide a view into what’s down the road. But the real work is sitting with the lessons and samples side-by-side in a working environment.
Get Programming with F# by Issac Abraham
Machine Learning Projects for .NET Developers by Matthais Brandewinder
Expert F# 4.0 by Don Syme, et al
Stylish F# by Kit Eason
Domain Modeling Made Functional by Scott Wlaschin
Online Resources #
Books often come with downloadable companion code - but there are also many free and paid online resources that facilitate the curious programmer’s journey.
- F# From the Ground Up (Kit Eason [Udemy paid courseware - highly recommended])
- F# for Fun and Profit (Scott Wlaschin’s site)
- Compositional IT News & Blog (company founded by Isaac Abraham)
- Learning F# (F# Foundation’s compendium)
- Functional koans in F# (Chris Marinos on GitHub)
There are many standard-bearers for F#, and they offer long-standing and substantial bodies of work to help software engineers approach regardless of their technical background.