F# at Microsoft Research

F# is a succinct, type-inferred, expressive, efficient typed functional and object-oriented language for the .NET platform.

These pages document F#'s home as a research project at Microsoft Research, Cambridge. The Microsoft Research team remain closely involved in the design of the F# language. You can find out all about the F# implementation from Microsoft at the MSDN F# Developer Center.

Download F# now --> Visual Studio 2010, or CTP Update for Visual Studio 2008 or standalone compiler+library ZIP, for Mono and Windows

F# developed as a research programming language to provide the much sought-after combination of type safety, succinctness, performance, expressivity and scripting, with all the advantages of running on a high-quality, well-supported modern runtime system. This combination has been so successful that the language is now being transitioned towards a fully supported language on the .NET platform. Some of the reasons for this move are that F# gives you:

• succinct, type-inferred functional programming,
• interactive scripting like Python and other languages,
• the foundations for an interactive data visualization environment,
• the combination of type inference and safety, like that of ML,
• a cross-compiling core shared with the popular OCaml language,
• a performance profile like that of C#,
• easy access to the entire range of powerful .NET libraries and database tools,
• a foundational simplicity with similar roots to Scheme,
• the option of a top-rate Visual Studio integration, which is usable with the freely available Visual Studio 2008 Shell
• the experience of a first-class team of language researchers with a track record of delivering high-quality implementations,
• the speed of native code execution on the concurrent, portable, and distributed .NET Framework.

The only language to provide a combination like this is F# (pronounced FSharp) - a scripted/functional/imperative/object-oriented programming language that is a fantastic basis for many practical programming tasks. 

F# was developed as a pragmatically-oriented variant of ML with a core language sharing many constructs with OCaml. Unlike other scripting languages it executes at or near the speed of C# and C++, making use of the performance that comes through strong typing. Unlike many type-inferred, statically-typed languages it also supports many dynamic language techniques, such as property discovery and reflection where needed. F# includes extensions for working across languages and for object-oriented programming, and it works seamlessly with other .NET programming languages and tools.

For further information on using the F# implementation from Microsoft today, see the MSDN F# Developer Center

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