Coding Day

Real-World functional programming has been written by Tomas Petricek and Jon Skeet.
Tomasz’s and Jon’s book is built around how to think functionally when programming and how to make best use of functional paradigm for real world scenerios. The book is written  mainly for the C# programmers who would like to switch/learn more of the functional world. It also features snippets with some technical background of the ideas involved.
As the title suggests the book is not focussed on one language, instead a mix of C# and F#, and it does a great job in bringing these worlds together,which is to me best of both worlds. Although, samples are all in functional style, when the problem needs the functional beauty to express, F# takes place. This gives any .NET developer to see when to use the necessary language for a particular problem.

The book starts slowly with the functional structures, and goes to monads, and to reactive libraries.  I found the language of the book clear to understand, and easy to follow. The samples in the beginning of a chapter starts with some really simple constructs, but at the end of a chapter they become more complicated, and a nice programs to reflect the idea of the chapter.

Applied functional programming is probably the most sophisticated part of the book. Some ideas mainly inspired from research papers (cited at the end) blended with modern languages and libraries and applied somewhat differently. Especially composable functional libraries and reactive functional programs were insightful and open the mind with new possibilities.

Finally, I would recommend this book whoever wants to switch to functional programming and also learn new techniques in general. Each sample is crafted well, and represent real value with its tutorial writing style.

I was thinking of reading a Lisp book. I checked the titles and decided to buy,
luckily, it’s freely provided in the Apress’ Practical Common Lisp page.

I doubt that it is done by mistake, because the e-book price is also indicated but anyway there is a free link to download it.

“Foundations of F#” is written by Robert Pickering who is a programmer and author living and working in Paris, France as he says. I think his enthusiasm in F# and .NET Framework made him to write this book. I really enjoyed reading his book and learned some new tricks in F# as well.

Review

“Foundations of F#” is a great introductory book for F# with some advanced samples. For those who are unfamiliar with functional programming, this book gives the notions of functional programming in all aspects while giving samples in the greatest platform with great language F#.

This book includes functional, imperative and object oriented programming paradigms giving great samples. Robert Pickering also focuses to the imperative programmers by giving the usage differences in F#. He introduces a wide range F# data structures from simple arrays to quotations with great explanations.

This book gives a lot of information on .NET Framework including the latest additions .NET Framework 3.0 and 3.5. Samples with LINQ and Windows Presentation Foundation fulfil this area. If you are unfamiliar with .NET Framework, don’t worry this book gives what you need to know about .NET framework in many different areas including network programming, web programming, database programming, and windows programming with clear and explanatory samples using relevant screenshots. The samples are unique and useful, it’s not the examples that you can find on the web, and it’s more specialised and focused on techniques specific to F#

Personally I most liked Language Oriented Programming chapter which gives very specific features and usage tricks to F# to make the most of the language. It’s a must have book in your bookshelf if you are interested in functional programming on .NET Framework

I found a new  and interesting book in my mailbox prepared for Teched 2006. I quickly looked through the book, it looks quite interesting.  Basically it is a book for helping the developers for creating collaborative applications and tasks with Sharepoint Services 2007 and Office 2007 System. A good reference for Sharepoint Services 2007 development and some new developments for office 2007.

 7 Development Projects with the 2007 Microsoft Office System and Windows SharePoint Services 2007